Open debate at UEL

UEL Monday June 24^th. London Festival Of Architecture

Room WB. WB.G.02

5.00  (MA/MSc Presentations.  MA/MSc Tutors will give a short

presentation of their course for 2013-2014.  All those interested in joining an MA/MSc programme should attend.)

6.00   Doors open/Bar/Networking

6.30   Tony Fretton

7.00   Maria Segantini

7.30   Liza Fior

8.00   Panel discussion led by Oliver Wainwright, audience question and answer session/debate.

8.30   Close

Chair Oliver Wainright

with Tony Fretton, Maria Segantini, Liza Fior and audience

“This house believes the needs of public space should lead urban interventions”.

Historically the architects design role springs from the clients Statement of Need/Brief.  This may or may not engage with public space/contextual issues.  The relation between building and context both interior and exterior is however at the very core of architecture. On the other hand, many very successful historic contexts have been created without the intervention of architects.  Furthermore architectural intervention in the past has not always been successful.  Are architects the best people to work with public space?  Should the interventions of architects lead public space design or should the needs of public space lead architects, their clients and the design of buildings?

On drugs and prison in the US, from the writer of The Wire

David Simon in yesterday's Observer.

On a less serious note, The Wire put me off TV for a long time, because nothing else ever came close.  Breaking Bad finally got me over it. 

A manifesto for professionalism in architecture

A little knowledge is dangerous as the saying goes, but in the profession of architecture, the practitioner’s brain is now creaking under the steadily increasing weight of knowledge required to meet legislation, best practice, financial and social expectations. This excess of knowledge is equally dangerous for architecture as ‘compliance’ seems to be the sole agenda of our age and buildings must ‘perform’ and act as ‘commodities’ almost to the exclusion of all other concerns.

As ever more of the Architect’s functions are handed over to project managers, health and safety coordinators and even builders, many lament the loss of influence of a once-great profession. Others, however see a new landscape rich with opportunity for architecture to re-invent itself and recapture the high ground as one of the very few surviving, truly creative professions. Such architects recognise that this cannot be achieved by turning their back on this new reality, but by engaging with it; taking it into their design processes and often subverting it. Architecture is also a uniquely optimistic activity and the subversion of pragmatic concerns frequently gives rise to surprising and inventive ideas and a deeper understanding of the objectives of creating architecture in the first place.

At UEL, we subscribe to this optimistic agenda, through the concept of integration. Professional studies is viewed as a body of knowledge that should be considered and integrated in the design process, helping to drive a project forward. Through this process, the knowledge can be re-interpreted and transformed, developing a confident but healthily sceptical attitude in the architecture students. This attitude can subvert constraints into opportunities and find pleasure in exploring and testing the boundaries of rules and requirements. We call this Professionalism.

Roland Karthaus, Professional Studies coordinator @ UEL

Architecture show