Tue 26 Feb 14.00 Lecture on Adaptability + tutorials

Last lecture for this year - 14.00 - we will be talking about Adaptability and Flexibility - important topic....something most architects don't think of....

Regarding tutorials: Please remember to bring in your entire portfolio in again, so that the other tutor not seeing your work at the mid terms can catch up with this.

We expect to see floor plans of your buildings and section(s), as well as further design development. And also a clear idea / reflection on the feedback you received at the mid term review. What is your strategy to address concerns raised about your portfolio???

Film screening: The social life of small urban places

William H. Whyte: The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces - The Street Corner from MAS on Vimeo.



The Architecture Foundation are screening "The social life of small urban places" by William H. Whyte next week. Quite related to what we are doing as a unit.

"William H. Whyte's 1988 film documenting use of public space in New York, begins by focusing on Seagram Plaza and proceeds to analyse successful, and less successful, public spaces in Manhattan. Closely observed and funny, this is a masterclass in accessible urbanism."

http://www.architecturefoundation.org.uk/programme/2012/we-made-that-the-open-office/social-life-of-small-urban-spaces

Fri 22 Feb - Y3 Mid term review

As announced, Mid-term reviews are happening next week to which every student is expected to attend. It's a formal assessment and you will receive an indicative mark of your current standing.

Year 2 is on Tuesday 19th afternoon
Year 3 on Friday 22nd afternoon

We expect to see printed portfolios (A3 reductions are OK, full size portfolios better) of your complete work up to date ( yes all your work from September 2012 onwards).

The reviews are handled as table-top presentations to a mixed panel of tutors form Unit A and Unit C. This is different from open crits / public pin-ups. You should see this as a kind of 'dry-run' for the presentation to the External examiners, and/or and interview situation.

Prepare yourself to present your complete work in 10 minutes using your portfolio. Expect Q&A afterwards. We have taken into account the other activities happening - TS+computing - on those days that week.

Time slots are actual times - please ensure you are on time and ready to go.
LOCATION - WEST BUILDING! 

Immigrant museum visit 13th February 10.30 am

Just reminding you about our Immigrant museum visit.

Its on the 13th of February (this Wednesday) at 10:30 am (please be on time) at 19 Princelet street close to Brick lane.

 https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=princelet+street+9&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&sa=N&tab=wl

Some ''house rules'' forwarded from the museum:


I hope you find the following reminders useful:

We would be grateful if the group could arrive on time and you should allow 90 minutes for the visit.
Do forewarn and emphasise to your group that this is an unheated building and therefore to wrap up as if going out for a country walk.
We have a map on our website at: http://www.19princeletstreet.org.uk/find.html

Please do try to avoid bringing large bags, parcels or rucksacks.

Although there is one toilet at 19 Princelet Street we do ask that, if possible, groups try to make sure that there is no need to use the toilet on arrival as this can impact on the time visitors have to explore the museum.

We are very much looking forward to welcoming you and your group to 19 Princelet Street on the 13th of February at 10:30am.

Tue 12 Feb Activity Lecture

Remember to bring your complete portfolio and all recent work with you + brief print out.

lecture uploaded to dropbox

Fri 8 Feb - Brief Tutorials

Alongside the tasks you were ask to complete at your last tutorial we are asking you to bring A4 print outs of the following:
- 250 words describing your building brief / functional programme / manifesto
- 100 words describing how your brief relates to your understanding of the project site and your urban strategy
- detailed list of all individual spaces/rooms of your building and sizes (m2).

Also: Please from now on, we are asking you to bring along to every tutorial, an up to date A3 print-out of your portfolio

Belgium field-trip guide book

The updated and complete Belgium field-trip guide that was collectively made, can be downloaded here. You may want to use some of the buildings we visited as precedences, so this may be useful resource.

LINK to download

Mapping Whitechapel

I noticed that groups have so far only uploaded pdfs to the dropbox.
Some groups are still missing the latest updates...
What we need is your original illustrator or dwg files so that eerybody can edit information and make this your own, depending on your personal brief. Please do upload as a matter of urgency. In can uploading does not work - e-mail me.
files size not larger than 15 MB please.

Tue 5 Feb - Stairs and Ramps Lecture

Further on from the workshop on Tuesday last week we expect to see for the individual tutorials on Tue 5 Feb, 1-3 spatial sequence models of unfolding spatial narratives/experiences from streetlevel over entrance on to the core programmatic space of your building. Scale 1:100 / 1:200.

Note regarding Tuesdays Tech concrete lecture: this is obligatory for Level 2 students, not for Level 3 though. 

See dropbox. lecture now uploaded

Fri 1 Feb 15.00 Open Jury - Unit A

It goes without saying that we need a full house tomorrow. The open jury panel of guest critics for the session with Unit A is made up as following. Good luck!

William Firebrace
Thomas Hillier
Simon Tucker
Shahid Hussain
Satoshi Isono (unit C)

Under the Cranes Film at Bishopsgate library 7 pm 13th February

Mixing rare film footage from Hackney Archives with freshly shot cinematography, Under the Cranes is a lyrical, painterly evocation of Hackney over several hundred years. Based on Michael Rosen's poetic play for voices, we hear from Shakespeare in Shoreditch, a Jamaican builder, a Turkish Barber and the 43 Group taking on Moseley in Dalston. Join Director of Under the Cranes, Emma-Louise Williams, with Michael Rosen and Ken Worpole as they discuss how the film celebrates diversity whilst critiquing the rush for urban "regeneration".

http://bishopsgate.org.uk/events_detail.aspx?ID=316&Keyword=Keyword&TypeID=http://bishopsgate.org.uk/events_detail.aspx?ID=316&Keyword=Keyword&TypeID=

Tue 29 Feb - 10.00 Relational States Workshop

10.00 -11.00 Relational states Workshop briefing
Bring model making tools and model making materials, e.g. card, grey board, etc.
We will start to explore a spatial sequence through model making.


11.00 -14.00  TS meeting with Raphael Tzlee and us for Level 2 and 3


14.00 - 18.00 Relational states workshop continues in afternoon


IMPORTANT:
Please bring your complete portfolio in tomorrow. All work up to date printed out.
We will choose from this for the work to be pinned up for the OPEN JURY this Thursday / Friday.
We will ask a number of students to present the work of the unit on Friday, 15.00
If you can please keep Wednesday afternoon clear to prep for the open jury.
 

Tue 22 Jan Urban Charrette

 
We will do a massing workshop tomorrow. We will start at 10.00 and finish around 17.30. It's a full day event in the studio and everybody is expected to attend.

Field-trip sketches

Can you please upload one best sketch of yours from Belgium to Dropbox fieldtrip. Filename = your name. Place in folder sketch. Thanks

Highstreet Panorama

LINK

Tue 15 Jan 10:00 Mapping workshop

Everybody bring laptop and all your observational info from Fridsay's onsite analysis.

All groups to have pinned up by 10:30am on our studio wall. Dont wait to be told. Map(s), additional mapping info + key photograph.

10:30-11:30 presentation / quick summary from each group explaining your mapping drawings

11:30-13:30 mapping tutorials with each group - for the rest of the day. All groups working towards bringing everything together into a pdf document by the end of the day.

from 14:00 with 2 members from each group site model explanation and get the model underway.

18:00 finishing

---------
Group site model: we have uploaded the individual group "tiles" here. May be useful for next week - model making LINK

Project Detroit scholarship win

A team consisting of Unit A students Julia Hedander and Paulina Huukari and four further students from University of East London have been awarded a scholarship by Going Global for a research project in Detroit, that will be carried out during summer 2013.

They are writing that, "Project Detroit: Post-industrial wastelands, ...will record the urban deterioration and will investigate what used to be there, by showing examples of a past vibrant city and finally what the city hopes to do in the future; how new organisations and partnerships are working towards regeneration. This will be done through documentation such as drawings, photographs, film and interviews with local community and city authorities."

Fri 11 Jan - Site Analysis Workshop

meet you at 10:00 in front of Whitechapel Gallery.
bring the usual site analysis equipment: coloured pens, sketchbook, camera, audio recorders, etc.

in prepatation for the workshop please read the following text extract from "the image of the city" by Kevin Lynch in advance.

Tue 8 Jan - kick off

Happy new year to everybody!
We hope you had a great start into the new year and got some rest, too.

We would like to meet at 11:00 tomorrow in our unit space for a briefing of what the next couple of months will look like and what we have in mind in terms of programme.

Carsten / Stephanie

Thu 13 Dec 18.00 - Helene Binet Lecture

This is a must see for all unit A students. Helene Binet is the most amazing architectural photographer. Not to be missed. Very relevant for us as a unit and for your second term.

Thu 13 Dec, 6pm Level 1

Final crits Tue 11 + Fri 14 Dec

As you know final crits are happening during next week. You are expected to attend both crit dates and present all your work of this semester so far. See below who is preseting on what days.

Tue 11 Dec, start 10.00 sharp

critics:
morning: Keita Tajima (unit H) + CJ
afternoon: Christian Groothuizen (unit H) + SSW

students that will be presenting:
Becky, Elias, Mimi, Quendressa, Julia, Maria, Ash, Mary, Ingrid, Michalis, Nadira, Savvas, Niki, Dishav, Mika.

--------------------

Fri 14 Dec, start 10.00 sharp

critics:
morning: Tak Hoshino + SWW + CJ
afternnnon: Shaun Ryder + SWW + CJ

students that will be presenting: 
Shafia, Anja, Theo, Ayoub, Paulina, Rozhgar, Sara, Angeliki, Nora, Mohtasham, Spencer, Baker, Daniel, Mobasher, Emmanuel.

Year 3 TS Meeting + cleaned unit space

Hi All,

Nora has worked on the layout for the TS report and has asked for our opinions on it. And we are handing in the TS report the 17th dec (soon!) so we decided it would be good to do a check up on all the workshop reports to make sure that we are on top on things.

Meeting about this will take place tomorrow 4th dec 13 pm in our unit space.

Also, me and Paulina has cleaned up the unit space a little, everything that we think is belongs to unit A is now in the shelves. There is however some things that does not seem to belong to anyone. These things are placed on the table next to the shelves, please have a look through and see if anything is yours.

/Julia

Architecture on Film: Le Centre Georges Pompidou / Cloud Island

 

Tuesday 11 December 2012, 7pm
Cinema 1, Barbican Centre, London EC2Y 8DS

Thie year's final screening of Architecture on Film explores the use of architecture and art as agents of urban change, through films documenting two world-leading, yet very different museums. Roberto Rossellini’s final film, a beautiful depiction of the opening of Paris’s Le Centre Georges Pompidou, will be viewed in the same sitting as Fiona Tan's Cloud Island – an intimate portrait of the small island of Inujima, at the time of its transformation into an outpost of the Naoshima Fukutake Art Museum.

Tickets:
Standard: £10.50 online (£11.50 otherwise) / AF Members: £8.50 online (£9.50 otherwise) / Concessions: £9.50 (£10.50 otherwise)/ Online: barbican.org.uk / Tel (9am – 8pm): +44 (0)20 7638 8891

Tue 27 Nov - Tutorials

I hope you enjoyed the trip as much as we did and found inspiration in some of the buildings we saw.

We have now only two weeks to go until the crits during last week of term... so please have a look again at the drawing list and switch into your highest gear in terms of production. (list we posted for the interim crit)

For next tutorial please bring with you:
1 All drawings + amended / new drawings as per comments & issues raised by critics. Make sure you also have orthographic line drawings
2 Further site observations / site analysis in connection with your personal interest / threshold design / criteria. Clarity of who your design is interacting with, e.g. user-groups
3 Clarity of idea / criteria of what your threshold is about and how it performs
4 Idea / sketch for drawings / visualisation with context to show a specific scenarios / moment in time / situation of your threshold intervention with public realm.

Field trip

We will meet at 6:45 am on Tuesday in front of the Eurostar check-in gates at St. Pancras International station. (in time for our 8:04 departure) Please remember your ticket (& reference if you still need to print it) & of course passport / ID card, etc.

For those who travel by different means here are following meeting points if you join us during the day.

11:00 Brussels Gare de Midi. (Eurostar exit) inside the station hall at groundfloor. 

15:30 Bronks Children's Theatre, Varkensmarkt 15, Brussels.
We have an appointment at 15.30 to be shown around the theatre.

Location in Google map see here:

After the theatre visit we will take a train to Gent - where we will head to the hostels - addresses here.
Make sure you have a note of the address, just in case.


Ecohostel Andromeda
Bargiekaai 35
9000 Gent, Belgium
tel +32 (0)486 67 80 33


Hostel Uppelink
Sint-Michielsplein 21
9000 Gent, Belgium
tel +32 (0)9279 44 77

Fri 16 Nov - Field trip guide workshop

Hello unit A - Field trip guide workshop: we meet at 10.30 to edit / work / collate and collectively produce our Belgium field-trip guide with information about all the building we intend to see. This will take up all day and will be quite a challenge to do, so all hands are essential needed! Please bring your A4 print-out with you for reviewing and your computer to work on.

14.00 Field-trip briefing / practical things...

Itinerary Map LINK

Drama in Belgium

Just something fun that I saw on youtube that relates to what I'm writing for the Belgium guide book. Public squares in Belgium.

Press the link to ad some drama.

Interim crit / pin-up Tue 13 Nov - 10.00 to 17.00

Just to reiterate that Tuesday will be a full day event and everybody is expected to participating in the review process / open crit. We will start at 10.00 in the studio and finish around 17.00.
A3 sized reductions of your work is fine to save you on printing costs - there might be some drawings though, that you may want show at original size. 

Yr 3 Technical studies

Dear Unit A 3rd years,

As you know we are having technical studies every Monday and this Monday we are blending some more concrete and making the concrete beam.
This Monday it is Anjas and Ayoubs turn to make the report of the process but it is still important that everybody else are attending.
On Monday me Julia and Marion are going to bring some textures for the concrete beam and tejp the inside of the form work. If anyone have some textures at home that they want to try out for the concrete beam then you are welcome to join on Monday 9 am in the unit space.

Have a nice weekend!

Kengo Kuma at Bartlett 7th Nov

http://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/architecture/events/kengo-kuma-lecture

mapping lecture

Yesterday's lecture regarding mapping is uploaded as usual to the dropbox. And the text by Karen Franck to read for this week in connection with public space is there too. 

Interim crit date : Tue 13th November

Technical studies Yr 3

 













On Monday the 29th we had the 2nd technical studies workshop where we were doing the concrete slump/cube test. 

As you know you have been assigned to different groups/workshops where your group will be responsible to resolve the related task followed by a small presentation every Monday.
The groups were posted on the blog. See; technical studies groups
However you need to attend every workshop session because of attendance/groupwork. Unit A is having workshops every Monday morning at 10 am. Next week we are constructing the formwork for the future concrete beam test so we are meeting at the wood workshop at 10 am on Monday 5th November.

I have created a folder at unit A dropbox. See; dropbox link
Where I have uploaded the photos from the slum/cube workshop and the pdf. for steel+tensile assignment by me and Julia. Here you can also upload your pictures, films etc. that you have taken during the workshops.

Tue 30 Oct - Tutorials & Lecture 14.00

Tutorials:
We would like to conclude the work on 1:1 materiality with the tutorials on Tuesday. Please bring with you all your work on the material threshold. So 1:1 testings, documentation of making / material tests / + general material research, the component drawings at appropriate scales and in axonometric, 1:10 drawings of various arrangements (in elevation / plan and section ) & studies of composition of the components + it's interaction / performance at body scale.

Lecture 14.00
Please all attend the lecture at 14.00 hrs. We will introduce the project sites for the year and talk about the next tasks, incl. site analysis, mappings, etc.

Vanishing City: The Story of East London's Chinatown 30 October 2012

 

30 October 2012

 

7:15 PM - 8:00 PM

Venue:

RIBA, 66 Portland Place, London W1B 1AD

Description:

The Chinese presence in the London Docklands began in the 19th century, slowly forming a Chinatown in Limehouse near Pennyfields and Limehouse Causeway. The 1930s slum clearance project and Tower Hamlets council housing developments of the 1960s resulted in the demolition of the buildings in this Chinatown.
Today, there is little trace of its physical presence. Little is known about the histories and stories of the original Chinese residents. The 1920s and 1930s representations of Chinatown and its residents in novels and films fuelled the construction of the Limehouse Chinatown myth. Opium dens, gambling and crime were the recurring themes of works, such as Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu (1913 - 1930s) and Thomas Burke's tales of Chinatown (1915 - 1930s), further stigmatised and exoticised the place.
In this talk, Dr Yat Ming Loo will present some of the findings from his research Architecture and immigration in London: The lost history of Limehouse Chinatown (1900 -1970). The research aims to revise the history of the area, demystifying fictional representations and eliciting evidence for its material and social architectural history.
The talk will share the history and stories of the lost spaces and the Chinese community focusing on an important moment in the vanishing of Limehouse Chinatown.
Professor Iain Borden, Professor of Architecture and Urban Culture at UCL will chair this event.

Fees:

This is a free event and seats will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

Booking:
Please contact Jessica Chapman on talks@riba.org to confirm your attendance.

Organiser:

RIBA

Light-Space Modulator

The spatial and visual effects of Moholy-Nagy's light-space Mudulator could be useful to groups interested in light, shadow, reflection, etc. (not so much the mechanical object itself - but what it creates)

LINK

Ceramics

Ceramics Exhibition at the AA until 8 Dec 2012
Mon-Friday 10.00–19.00, Sat 10.00–15.00
LINK

Point and Line to Plane

This is the book by russian artist Vasilli Kandinskij I was mentioning yesterday. It's very short and easy to read and gives an amazing understanding of graphic layout of a page, and the human perception of it.
It basically explains the weight of geometrical entities and why a layout is more successful than another

LINK

Fri 26 Oct Tutorials + Reading

I have uploaded two inspirational reading reference about materiality. Please read in preparation for the next session.
Annette Gigon - Materials and colours
Gregor Eichinger: Parts and whole

Teaching start date: 7th January 2013

Some of you may be booking flights for x-mas, etc. I just noticed that teaching will actually start much earlier than listed in the brief / hand-out, as I was given a wrong timetable. Apologies.

Schools starts 7th January 2013. Y3 has PS hand-in on that Monday I believe.
First Unit A design teaching / studio day is Tuesday 8 Jan 2013.

Tue 23 Oct 10am Lecture: 03_Editorial

 03_Editorial lecture now uploaded to dropbox for your reference.

Please bring all material testing and documentation / drawings / research with you. Bring again your threshold observations (case-studies). Please upload the 5 x A3s as single pdf to the dropbox, folder 05, so we can collate this into a unit A resource.

Field-trip Ghent hostel: In order to complete the hostel bookings - we need to collect monies next week - cash...!  Costs on the wall - we will need to figure out the exchange rate....

Has everybody booked the Eurostar ticket?
People requiring Visa for Belgium - are you on top of this?

TS Year 3 Groups

Workshop 1 (15. 10. 2012)
Steel tensile test  
Julia, Paulina

Workshop 2 & 3 (29.10.2012)
Concrete slump test & concrete cube mix
Sara, Dessa, Mimi, Becky

Workshop 4 (05.11.2012)
Beam formwork building
All groups

Workshop 5 (12.11.2012)
Concrete beam cast
Anja, Ayoub

Workshop 6 (26.11.2012)
Concrete cube test
Marion, Angeliki

Workshop 7 (10.12.2012)
Concrete beam test
Theo, Ilias, Rozhgar, Fathima

Editor of TS report: Nora

Final hand- in for the report is 17.12.2012

These are the groups we decided at the meeting. We will of course work together on all the tests but when it is your workshop week your group are responsible for calculations and documentation of that test. We will have a short meeting after every workshop to make sure that we are on track. (workshop 1 has to have present their work after workshop 2 and workshop 2 after workshop 3 and so on) at this meeting also make sure that Nora has all info needed for editing.

If everyone who was at workshop 1 could upload their photos, videos to dropbox before monday it would be great.

Also if you do not want to buy the TS book a scanned version is uploaded to the Unit A fb page.

/ Julia

groupwork / teams

update Mon 19 Oct

Tue 16 Oct, Lecture 02 Material Response

Lecture first thing, Pin-up after to conclude the initial threshold observations across our project site. We will start at 10am and expect everybody to participate the full day. Please bring your 5 x A3 sheets, each containing an axonometric drawing that explains an observation of a particular threshold condition (case-study) with its social (behavioural / performative), material (close-up) and spatial relationships. Relevant secondary information such as location plan, photographs, user-groups, timetables, diagrams, etc. should be integrated onto the sheets.

Guest critic: Jack Case

Belgium field-trip

Here is the promised info regarding our field-trip to Belgium.
We will travel to Ghent, that will become our base, from where we will set out to various locations across Belgium. (We are finalising hostel accommodation at the moment. Let us know in case you are organising you own accommodation - details on this soon.)
 
Please book your own EUROSTAR return ticket here and as following:
www.eurostar.com

Departure:
We will travel on Tuesday 20th November 2012, at 8:04 am from London St Pancras International to destination (important!) "any Belgium station" (=Ghent)

Return:
Saturday 24th November 2012, at 16:56pm (from Brussels) or a train later - as you like (up to you if cheaper or you want to stay longer...)

If you are under 25 you should select ticket type: "youth" (=cheaper)

We would suggest that you book this now - as prices will go up later...
Contact us if you have any questions.

Note to international students re VISA: Check if you need a VISA for travelling to Belgium. It's your responsibility to obtain this. Make sure you allow plenty of time for this!

I booked my ticket: outbound: coach 16, inbound: coach 3

Invites to blog and dropbox

just to say I have sent out invites to your e-mail addresses for the blog and the unit A dropbox, to which all essential unit information will be uploaded. ( briefs, lectures, site-info, field-trips, reading references, etc...) In case you have not received this, provide me with an e-mail address you use, see earlier post.

drawing relations

to download today's lecture check the unit A dropbox - invites sent to you via e-mail.

Technical studies introduction Y3 & Y2

I was asked by Raphael to make you aware of the introduction to your technology module on Monday 8 Oct in room KD 1.28

Year 3: 15.00
Year 2: 16.00

FRI 5 OCT, 10.00 Lecture + Tutorials

Tue 2nd Oct, 10 am | Whitechapel site visit

Hello and Welcome to Unit A blog!

Our first day is a visit to our study area in Whitechapel.
We meet at 10.00 at in front of the Idea Store Whitechapel by David Adjaye. (nearest tube Whitechapel Station, from here approx. 100 metres to your left...)

In preparation for the site visit, we ask you to read a short text by Jan Gehl, download it here: 
LINK to text

Please bring with:
A nice sketchbook (minimum size A5) and a really good pen or soft pencil 2/3/4B (please no crappy bic-pens or super-hard 10H pencils...) your camera and an A-Z/map or equivalent (so you don't get lost).

We will spend the day outside walking and observing - so appropriate dress and shoes essential. There will be lunch opportunities round Petticoat Lane Market (street food). We are planing to finish around 17.00

Link to map - meeting point
Link to TfL journey planner
Link to TfL tube map

Composite Infrastructures