Subject to confirming some minor issues with our travel documents (we now have three passports between the two of us, and our return flights terminating in either Helsinki or Glasgow depending on which airline website we download our itinerary from) I will be attending the American Institute of Architecture Students 2009 Forum in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota from 29 – 31 December. On the 31st I’ll be running a seminar / workshop event entitled Trans-Atlantic transactions, in which the American AIA Code of Ethics (http://www.aia.org/about/ethicsandbylaws/index.htm) and the British RIBA Code of Conduct ( http://www.architecture.com/TheRIBA/Organisation/Constitution/CodeofConduct.aspx) will be explored, deconstructed and re-assembled to consider what it is architects do in practice, and to discuss the contribution of recent graduates and young architects to an expanded notion of practice.
I was planning to submit a more detailed description of the event to the AIAS Forum organisers, but my hand slipped and it was emailed as described above. It actually reads much better than what I had planned, and I’m looking forward to meeting students and other Forum delegates in a few weeks time.
My attendance at the AIAS Forum has been made possible thanks to Queens University Belfast’s Emily Scott Montgomery Travel Scholarship, and my research cluster The Centre for Built Environment Research (CBER).
Last night I had the pleasure of attending the launch of QUB faculty member Sarah Lappin’s new book Full Irish: New Architecture in Ireland at PLACE, the Architecture and Built Environment Centre for Northern Ireland. It’s a beautifully written and designed volume published by Princeton Architectural Press in the same series as Bart Lootsma’s seminal Superdutch: New Architecture in the Netherlands, and will make an excellent stocking filler for the architect in your life.
Next Saturday, I’ll be delivering my first conference paper. So this weekend is not one for snuggling down with a few books, but covering every horizontal surface of my study in pieces of paper as I finesse the paper I’m delivering at this year’s AHRA Research Symposium. If you are in or near Cardiff on Saturday 12 December, drop the organisers a line (email below) and watch me nervously mumbling my way through…
Sixth Annual Architectural Humanities Research Association (AHRA) Research Student Symposium
Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University
Saturday 12 December 2009
10:30: Welcome & Coffee
SESSION ONE: PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES
Chair: Sam Austin, Welsh School of Architecture
11:00: James Benedict Brown, Queen’s University Belfast
Be Bold and Proceed: Fifty Years of Live Projects in British Architectural Education
11:30: Elizabeth Payne Toft, ESALA, University of Edinburgh/Edinburgh College of Art
Assessing Students’ Problem-solving Preparedness: Toward Politic Interdisciplinary Collaboration
12:00: Angela Collings, Queensland University of Technology
A Successful Balance: A Study into the Work-Life Challenges in the Architectural Profession
12:30: Lunch
SESSION TWO: ARCHITECTURAL & URBAN ARTEFACTS
Chair: Tom Brigden, Welsh School of Architecture
13:30: Wesley Perrott, University of Canberra (by Skype)
Divergent Pursuits and the New Organic: EPFL Rolex Learning Centre Lausanne by SANAA Architects Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa
14:00: Douglas Spencer, Westminster University
Parallel Lines: Formal Expression as Publicity in the Architecture of Zaha Hadid’s Central Building for BMW Leipzig
14:30: Nicholas Jewell, Westminster University
Blinded by the Lights: Imagineering Beijing’s Future Cityscape
15:00: Coffee
SESSION THREE: INSTITUTIONS & OBJECTS
Chair: Mhairi McVicar, Welsh School of Architecture
15:30: Steve Parnell, University of Sheffield
1984 and the Institution of Architecture
16:00: Catherine Tate, University of Melbourne
The American Hospital in Melbourne, 1942
16:30: Mollie Claypool, Architectural Association
The [dis] Appearance of the Architectural Object: Narratives of the Subject in Projects of the City
17:00 Close
Delegates are welcome. There is no fee, but please email lewisk2 < – AT – > cardiff < – DOT – > ac < – DOT – > uk
Back by popular demand, not that I have the time for this much reading this weekend…
ILLICH, I., 2002. Deschooling Society. London: Marion Boyars.
PALLASMAA, J., 2009. The Thinking Hand. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.
SENNETT, R., 2009. The Craftsman. London: Penguin.
Next month I’ll be heading through the process known at Queens University as ‘differentiation’. In some other schools it’s called ‘upgrade’ or something vaguely similar, but it is the panel-based interview process whereby my work to date (approximately nine months in) is assessed and permission to continue towards a PhD is either granted or denied.
At this, and at any other juncture when I am asked about my research, a poignant question ought to be asked. Why should I spend three years of my life (and a not insignificant amount of funding) producing research into this field?
As a first step on the path to answering this question fully, I did some calculations, based on the amount of peer-reviewed published literature I could find on architectural education initiatives and projects that might be said to fit the description of those I am studying.
The Journal of Architectural Education is a peer-reviewed journal published four times a year on behalf of the (United States of America) Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. Ten years’ editions of the journal – from 53(1), September 1999 to 63(1), October 2009 – were searched for content relating that related to ‘live’ and/or community-based projects that engaged students of architecture with real clients and/or a real project.
Content was initially searched electronically by use of four keywords. These keywords were determined by their frequent appearance in the broader literature I’ve been studying in this first year of my studies.
- “community” (15 occurences)
- “community design” (9 occurences)
- “design build” “design-build” “design/build” (43 occurences)
- “live project” (2 occurences)
A total of 69 occurrences were found between 1999 and 2009. This included a number of duplicate results, namely articles with two or three of the above keywords. Removing duplicate results, 42 unique articles were found.
The remaining 42 abstracts and articles were then examined to identify those that were non-applicable to this study, and which had been returned through a different interpretation of the keywords. 21 articles were found not to describe projects as sought in the initial parameters, and were elimated. The 21 remaining articles all described initiatives within and outwith schools of architecture that matched the initial parameters.
Of these 21 articles, 19 were authored by participants in project described (academics, students or in some instances both). The remaining 2 were authored by persons not known to be directly involved in the project described.
So, not the whole answer, nor the whole argument. But I believe (and I intend to repeat this rather simplistic assessment of published literature for other key publications in the field of architectural education) that there is justification for a rigorous piece of comparative research (qualitative and quantitative) conducted by someone not directly associated with the projects under investigation.
For the second time in two weeks, I’m at University of Sheffield School of Architecture. Cue much joking from staff and students about me not being able to stay away from my alma mater.
I’m here this week to do some research and to attend the 2009 student-led Theory Forum, which starts tomorrow. I was here last week to witness the end of project reviews of the 2009 live projects. With one of the live project teams proposing short and medium term solutions to problems surrounding Sheffield’s stalled £600,000,000 city centre ‘Seven Stone’ redevelopment, the event was held in a vacant department store just off the Moor, a once thriving street of low-end value shops and stores that has been earmarked for gentrification. With the financial crisis causing most of the money associated with the Seven Stone plans to evaporate into thin air, the city is now laced with empty shops, many of which were compulsorily purchased and/or vacated before it was realised there was little or no ready money to demolish, rebuild or refurbish. It is hard not to subscribe to the theory that there is some greater being who has decided that Sheffield should be forever trapped in a cycle of being shat on from a great height every decade. Who knows how long it will take for the city to solve this problem, especially as the only solution seems to be to wait for the end of the recession and then start building more shops. No-one has seemed to question why Sheffield needs so many shopping centres and chain stores. It’s not like the country needs another Birmingham.
Still the faded and (because the building was unheated) frigid ground floor space of the department store made for an interesting venue to present and review architectural projects. Not that much critical reviewing took place; the programme had compressed fifteen projects into a single day with only ten to fifteen minutes for each. It was hard to engage with this current crop of real-time student projects because there was not much room for dialogue or discussion. The presence of some project clients also suggested that this was not the time or the place to critique or probe deeply. The recognisable spirit and atmosphere was there, and the modular wall mounted suspension panels (once used for displaying electrical goods) made for a tolerable exhibition space. Two silent and non-functioning escalators sat in the middle of the building, leading up and down to dark unknown voids.
There was something particularly poignant about the display of student work in a derelict department store. Every year Sheffield (and most of the other forty or so schools of architecture in Britain) churns out about fifty final stage graduates in architecture. Nascent careers that are already counter-weighted by five years of student debt (now often unsecured as well as secured) begin as blurry eyed students enter the real world to find a job.
I was not the only person present to notice this old notice about the doors to the street. Thank you for buying your architectural education from us. Good luck out there, and remember that you generally only get paid when provide something in exchange that the market is prepared to pay for.
While my supervisor is out of town on other business, I will ignore her modesty and draw your attention to this news item:
Entrepreneurs win prize for best local innovation
By Symon Ross Monday
Belfast Telegraph, 28 September 2009
Two female entrepreneurs have cemented their place among the leading innovative businesses in Northern Ireland by taking home the top prize in the Northern Ireland Science Park’s competition to find the province’s “next big thing”.
Tactility Factory, founded by Ruth Morrow and Trish Belford, edged out nine rival competitors to win the NISP CONNECT £25k Award.
They took home a £10,000 cheque for their patented technology designed to combine textile design with hard building materials such as concrete.
The concept is expected to have implications for building construction and received credit from the judges for combining Northern Ireland’s textiles heritage with building product design.
Trish Belford said: “Competing for this award benefited our business thinking and has given us great insight into the potential of our business on a global scale.
“This award has greatly boosted our prospects to commercialise our product and go to market. In addition to this, the icing on the cake is receiving a significant financial prize which will provide vital capital at this time enabling us to take advantage of the opportunities that are now presenting themselves.”
Steve Orr, director of NISP Connect, said the awards had uncovered local talent with innovative ideas and inspiring ambitions.
A few weeks ago I blogged about some of the more memorable and provocative papers delivered at the 2009 RIBA Research Symposium. A highlight for me was the video offered by an absent Dr. Jonathan Charley of Strathclyde University, who couldn’t attend in person. It’s good to now see it up on Youtube, and I’ve also shared it on the blog of a fifth year elective module I’m involved with. You can find out more on ARC8014: ‘Examining Architectural Practice through the lens of Architectural Education’ on that module’s blog: archedlens.wordpress.com
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