Learning from Thames Valley

Studio 2′s ‘Learning from TV’ has been named as one of London’s top ten architecture units by Architectural Review.

See the list here, and see more on Studio 2 here, including details of projects by Elly Ward, Rolando Andreou and Maria Lisogorskaya.

Come and see Studio 2′s Learning from Thames Valley work at the LMU Architecture and Spatial Design Summer Exhibition.

25 June – 8 July 2010

Friday 25 June – Thursday 8 July
The show is open on weekdays, 10am – 7pm
and on Saturdays, 10am – 2pm

Department of Architecture
and Spatial Design
Spring House
40 – 44 Holloway Road
London N7 8JL
T 020 7133 4431
map

More information here:

http://www.asd-realtime.org/exhibitions/summer-exhibition-2010/

TUESDAY 3rd NOVEMBER 2009
1 – 2pm, The Forum, Spring House
Department of Architecture and Spatial Design, London Metropolitan University

Dougald Hine of Space Makers Agency
presents
Nomadic Infrastructure

“In seeking to grease the cogs, we came to the loose conclusion that we needed portable kitchens, plugin cinemas and nomadic libraries…”
Temporary School of Thought

The impact of the recession on the high street has led to considerable interest in projects making temporary use of empty premises.  Space Makers Agency is working with the Temporary School of Thought and the Hexayurt Project on the Nomadic Infrastructure project. This will map the physical and social infrastructure needs of temporary-occupancy projects, then develop designs and prototypes for mobile, modular units to facilitate the use of otherwise unfit spaces – as well as social toolkits for running effective temporary space projects.

All designs will be open-sourced and made available online. We are currently negotiating for the use of an empty retail space which will provide a base in which to host conversations and a workshop for designing and building equipment.

•                  Space Makers Agency researches the use of under-used space and works with a range of partners to develop practical projects. It is currently running the UK’s largest empty shops project with Brixton Village indoor market.

•                  The Temporary School of Thought made headlines in January 2009 when it organised a three-week “free school” in a squatted townhouse in Mayfair. Its members went on to work with the Royal Parks to build the Treehouse Gallery in Regents Park this summer.

•                  The Hexayurt Project was founded by Vinay Gupta, the inventor of the hexayurt – an open-source shelter which has been taken up by the US Department of Defense and the Burning Man community. Vinay also works on strategic critical infrastructure mapping and helped found STAR-TIDES.

One of a series of Tuesday lunchtime talks where architects, developers and theorists present and discuss their proposals for the public realm in the post-suburban city.  Chaired by Vincent Lacovara / AOC

TUESDAY 27th OCTOBER 2009
1 – 2pm, The Forum
Department of Architecture and Spatial Design, London Metropolitan University

Stephen Bates of Sergison Bates architects
presents
The London Sustainable Industries Park, Dagenham

The concept for a Sustainable Industries Park centers on environmental sustainability and involves transforming the currently fragmented and under-developed 142 hectare industrial site at Dagenham Dock into an exemplar park for emerging technologies operating in the field of sustainable resources and energy technology. The aim is to make the park wholly self-sustainable and to develop an industrial symbiosis over time, where businesses use each other’s by-products and share resources.

Sergison Bates propose the creation of a place of distinctive character, a managed and maintained woodland landscape which provides a strong spatial setting for the Sustainable Industries Park to emerge and develop through to 2040. The new green infrastructure builds upon what already exists on the site, from roads and buildings to surface water ditches, but also leads to a complete transformation of the site and the establishment of a new sense of place, a new community and a new London landscape.  Read more.

One of a series of Tuesday lunchtime talks where architects, developers and theorists present and discuss their proposals for the public realm in the post-suburban city.  Chaired by Geoff Shearcroft/AOC

Suburbia at the London Transport Museum

‘From homes to gnomes, how public transport shaped the suburbs’

15 October – 31 March

More information here

Creative Edge: Reconceiving Suburban London

At the Royal Academy of Arts

19 October 2009

In the Reynolds Room, a John Madejski Fine Room

London’s outer suburbs have stereotypically been portrayed as safe, boring and uninspiring, especially against more dynamic central districts. Yet London’s suburbia has proved a fertile seedbed for creativity, particularly in contrast to an increasingly gentrified and generic centre. Speakers including sociologist Rupa Huq, geographer David Gilbert, writer Tim Lott and artist Nico Hogg, consider the trajectories, contradictions and possibilities of London suburbia. Chaired by Paul Barker author of The Freedoms of Suburbia.

In collaboration with the UCL Urban Laboratory

6.30–8 pm; £7/£4 reductions (includes a drink)

http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/events/talks/creative-edge-reconceiving-suburban-london,895,EV.html

One of a series of Tuesday lunchtime talks where architects, developers and theorists present and discuss their proposals for the public realm.

Chaired by Geoff Shearcroft/AOC

Follow this link for more information

The first in a series of Tuesday lunchtime talks where architects, developers and theorists present and discuss their proposals for the public realm.

Chaired by Geoff Shearcroft/AOC

Studio 2′s first outing of the year. Part of the Architecture Foundation’s Radical Nature: Contemporary Visions series.

5 October 2009, 6.30pm

Economy of Means: James Wines/SITE
Chaired by Vicky Richardson, Editor, Blueprint magazine

Founded by James Wines in 1970 following his career as an abstract sculptor, SITE Environmental Design is a pioneering architecture practice of ecological sensitivity and radical artistic gestures. An acronym for ‘Sculpture In The Environment’, SITE achieved wide and lasting notoriety through their projects for Best Products in the 1970s – big box showrooms that transcended their function with trompe-l’oeil peeling walls, collapsing facades, and invading forests.

Presenting a new lecture, Economy of Means: A Brief History of Doing More with Less in Art, Architecture and Landscape Design, James will profile ways to meet the demands of economic crisis, energy efficiency and sustainable design, without loss of aesthetic quality. From Duchamp’s ‘readymades’ and Picasso’s collages, to Le Corbusier’s ‘Machines for Living in’ and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonion houses; from the birth of the Radical Architecture movement in the 1970s to the idea of utilising frugality as inspiration and raw material in the present.

James Wines is founder, President and Creative Director of SITE, and Professor of Architecture at Penn State University.

READ MORE

Find a PDF of Studio 2′s studio presentation here:

Studio 2 – Learning from Thames Valley