26 Jan 2022 Annual General Meeting - Was it a party or a work event?

AIA UK Chapter Past President, Katharine Storr AIA orchestrated the hybrid Annual General Meeting from her laptop.  Image Credit: Etain Fitzpatrick AIA.

The AIA UK Chapter’s Annual General Meetings have always been a bit of BOTH – a short, but deadly serious business meeting, surrounded by the warmth and sparklingly hospitality of our host and long term sponsor, Herman Miller.  However, this year it also became a hybrid event of a different sort – part live at the Herman Miller London showrooms for a lucky few, part virtual for others at home.

Putting on a hybrid event is not easy, particularly when the production team and presenters are scattered across the city, but after a few minor hitches all went according to plan.

First - following a long term tradition - Herman Miller provided not only canapes and drinks, but also presented a well thought out virtual lecture (1 CEU) entitled ‘The Office: a Facility Based on Change’, given by its Insight Director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Mark Catchlove.

Our special thanks to Herman Miller’s Mark Catchlove and Shazia Sheikh for their ongoing commitment to the AIA.  Image Credits: Bea Sennewald AIA and Katharine Storr AIA.

At this transitional time when everyone is concerned about the future, Catchlove chose to look into the past for inspiration and concentrated on words of wisdom produced in 1968 by the then Herman Miller president, Robert Propst.  “Going to the office today,” Propst said, is to “suffer a variety of environmental accidents, instead of efficiency, vitality, health and motivation.”  For many, the most important feature of the office was where one sat in respect of the office hierarchy, while there was limited support for what one was actually trying to accomplish.

The office as a concept has been in a state of radical change every generation since the 1960s; however, today’s technology and social media have accelerated the recent rate of change almost out of our control.  Catchlove argued that now – in the aftermath of the pandemic – is the time to revitalise, to recapture our lost freedoms and seek responsibility and autonomy to improve our workspaces.  

In light of the strong incentives to work from home, he stressed the importance of the support an office brings to a company’s fundamental conversational exchange, the bonding and bridging with teams, the physical movement and interaction with one’s environment.  “We need” he noted “to balance the individual’s needs with the group’s needs”.

If you missed the night’s presentation, you could check it out HERE

or access other Insight Group research HERE for more from Herman Miller.

Second - following the educational presentations, the formal part of the AGM dealt with review of the 2021 Accounts and the election of the 2022 Board of Directors and Officers. Additionally, the 2021 President, Katharine Storr AIA, gave an overview presentation of the past year and the 2022 President, Anna Foden AIA, gave a preview of plans for 2022. The Year End Presentation can be viewed in full HERE.

There was an element of social distancing for those who attended live; but the majority of members chose the virtual option. Image Credit: Etain Fitzpatrick AIA.

Virtual viewers missed the hospitality and overall comradery at Herman Miller’s showrooms. Image Credit: Katharine Storr AIA

Written by: Lorraine King AIA, Secretary AIA UK Chapter

Chris Wilkinson, Double Stirling Prize Winner, Dies Age 76

The AIA UK board is very sad to hear of the passing of Chris Wilkinson, OBE, FAIA on the 14th of December.  Chris was the founding partner of London based Wilkinson Eyre Architects.  Chris was a member of the AIA UK and a good friend of the Chapter, presenting lectures and participating on design juries.  Chris was nominated by the Chapter and awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the AIA in 2007 for his distinguished achievements in design.

Chris was one of a band of Architects that emerged with a new era of modernists in the early 1980s after working with Foster + Partners.  Founding his practice in 1983, he was a great believer in bridging art and science and using technology and materials to combine a commitment to the spirit of the new with an awareness of context.  This approach won the practice numerous awards, including the prestigious RIBA Lubetkin Prize for both the Guangzhou International Finance Centre and the cooled conservatories at the Gardens by the Bay in Singapore.  His practice also won the RIBA Stirling Prize for Architecture for the Gateshead Millennium Bridge and Magna.  Notable UK projects include, RHS Hilltop, Surrey, Weston Library, Oxford, Royal Ballet School, London, and stands at Lord’s Cricket Ground, London.

Chris is quoted, “Our projects give us scope to fulfil our love of design, and to make a worthwhile contribution to society. Each project is an opportunity to explore new ideas, and to try and build good architecture.”

Chris will be greatly missed, and our thoughts are with is family, partners, and colleagues at this difficult time.

AIA Student Charrette 2021 - A Tale of New Cities

Photo: Students absorbed in their work... Credit: Agnese Sanvito

Peering apprehensively through the rain streaming down the windows of the Building Centre, the organisers of this year's Student Charrette started the day considering the very real prospect of a wash-out. Luckily, it wasn't long before they spotted the first competitors gamely wading through the sodden streets of Bloomsbury, to be rewarded with steaming cups of coffee and an endless buffet of pastries. As more students arrived for the day's competition, it became clear that an autumn downpour and early start were hardly enough to dampen the fires of competitive architecture, and this year's event saw a particularly strong student turnout representing universities from Dundee to Plymouth.

The day started with a presentation from Roca, the event sponsors, followed by an introduction to the competition brief. Given the Building Centre's location in Bloomsbury, the brief lent heavily on the area's literary heritage, using local resident Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities to set the post-pandemic mood ('It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...'). The brief asked the students to design an intervention to draw visitors back into the heart of London and offered the small crescent in front of the Building Centre as the competition site. Prioritising a sustainable approach, students were asked to question how their structures might be disassembled and repurposed, and to carefully consider how they might use their interventions to express a broader vision for the post-pandemic city-centre. 

Photo: The Building Centre front show room and café, taken over by busy students… Credit: Agnese Sanvito

This year's charrette sought to ensure that all students who wished to take part could do so with minimal financial burden.  In support of the Chapter's commitment to diversity and inclusivity, AIAUK provided students with all model-making and drawing materials, and a pre-printed competition pack of site-plans, site photos and elevations. Alongside the breakfast, lunch and drinks provided over the course of the day, there was also an offer to reimburse travel expenses where necessary. 

After a frantic day of designing, the students presented their designs to a panel of three jurors, composed of Katharine Storr, AIAUK president and architect at AHMM, Rebecca Nixon, architect at AHMM and a previous winner of the chapter's Noel Hill Award, and Simon Aldridge, architect at Aldridge Atelier. Each team had five minutes to present their proposals and five minutes to receive feedback from the judges, who enjoyed a series of inventive and well-considered presentations from teams representing Hertfordshire, Bath, Nottingham Trent, Loughborough, Dundee, Reading, Ravensbourne, Westminster, Brighton, Sheffield, Plymouth, London South Bank, and the University for the Creative Arts.  

Proposals ranged far and wide in their sources of inspiration and expression. The judges discussed musical installations, giant rope hangings resembling cobwebs, a furniture making factory-cum-street party, elegant mirrored and suspended sails, and a book exchange programme, before retreating to their chambers to determine the winner over a restorative glass of wine. During deliberations, students enjoyed their own, well-earned drinks in the Building Centre's gallery. 

Photos: It was all about teamwork and a little bit of controlled chaos…  

Finally, the judges emerged to declare the team from UCA Canterbury the winners for their whimsical proposal to line the streets of Bloomsbury with rain-powered music-machines. Having arrived at the charrette drenched, the students were able to turn their misfortune into an evocative starting point for their design process, which carefully considered how sound could be used to draw visitors into the heart of Bloomsbury. The judges felt they answered the competition brief successfully and praised the team for the sensitivity of their design and their vision for a city that celebrates its connection to the natural world and encourages visitors to think more carefully about their connection to site and climate. Runner-up prizes were also awarded to the teams from Bath and Sheffield for their community-focused proposals. 

Photo: Congratulations to the winning students from UCA Canterbury: Kirils Bakirovs, Alfie Demmon, Ivor Gabric, Elena Gruber, Tancho Lawati, Mila Mielau, Alessandra Moraru, Dimitra Voutsi (mentored by Kevin P Flanagan AIA)! Photo Credit: Agnese Sanvito

Photo: The runners up from Bath: Irene Mahanyu, Valerie Tsang, Zarhona Aslam Khan, Daria Shiryaeva, Cheuk Yan Ho and their mentors Matthew Heitel and Michelle Martin. Photo Credit: Agnese Sanvito

Photo: And the runners up from Sheffield: Francille Castro, Precious Obiyo, Hannah Chin, Cristina David, Nina Moisan, Sophia Hutchings, Nalinee Hanpiyavatanasakul and their mentor Pierre Baillargeon. Photo Credit: Agnese Sanvito

The charrette’s atmosphere of intense dedication and hard work is recorded in the slide show.

Written by: Nicholas Kehagias, AIA, RIBA

2021 Noel Hill Award Winning Team

Photo: A college of the Mackintosh School of Architecture presentation.

It was a busy day for the Student Charrette jurors this year, as they met at the Building Centre in early November before that event to judge this year's Noel Hill Award submissions. The award is presented annually to a Part 2 student that has undertaken outstanding and original research during their studies. It is not limited by topic or location and offers £3,000 to enable students to further pursue and develop their interests. 

Relaunched this year, the award attracted numerous entries, each of which consisted of two A3 pages and a short video presentation. Students presented their proposals for the continuation of research carried out during the course of their Part 2 studies, looking to win the £3,000 prize - one of the largest student architecture prizes in the UK.  To learn more about the Award and the requirements see Noel Hill Award — AIA UK.

A team of four students from the Mackintosh School of Architecture were selected as the winners for their proposal to further develop a community-building workshop in the Govanhill area of Glasgow. The jury was struck by the participatory design initiated by the group, who showed resourcefulness and creativity in driving forward their community project during the pandemic. The AIA UK is happy to support their return to site for continued engagement - hosting new workshops, building further installations using recycled materials, and conducting post occupancy evaluations to gather feedback on their interventions.  

Congratulations to the winning students: Lily Whitehouse, Kasia Antoszyk , Kester Samsom and Zoë Hyatt. We look forward to seeing how their research progresses over the coming year. Their completed research will be presented at the Chapter’s 2023 Excellence in Design Awards and will be published in a future newsletter. 

Written by: Nicholas Kehagias, AIA, RIBA

Iris Ceramica invites AIA UK to the Architects Series at its Speakeasy Club

Photo: While Iris Ceramica’s production team set up the event, Russell Brown and Roger Hawkins go over their notes…

Following up on our commitment to become more actively involved with AIA UK Chapter’s sponsors, we were pleased to be invited to Iris Ceramica’s Speakeasy Club on 18 Nov 2021 for this month’s ‘Architects Series’. 

The Architects Series offers exclusive videos - up close and personal - with some of the most famous architecture studios around the world. In collaboration with Iris Ceramica Group, team members from The Plan – an independent production team - go behind the scenes of the most important international practices to report on the life, work, and aspirations of the architects who build our cities.

The November session was an in-depth review of Hawkins/Brown Architects with a chance to meet the principles after the video for an open discussion of their work. At circa 300 employees, Hawkins/Brown is one of the UK’s largest architectural practices.  Three major projects from the many reviewed in their excellent presentation exemplified the practice’s ethos of adding social value to good design: 

• Crossrail’s Tottenham Court Road station, emphasising art and circulation,

• Sheffield’s Park Hill Housing, bringing ‘love, life and pride back to an abused icon’,

• Olympic Park’s Here East project, rescuing a ready to be demolished broadcasting shed and turning it into 1.2million sq ft of creative and digital industry units.

Photo: A relaxed atmosphere encourages face to face interaction with the featured architects.

Iris Ceramica’s Architects Series is international, and the event was transmitted simultaneously to London, Milan and Berlin with 2.0 CE credits for both the AIA and RIBA. Those of us attending live at the London showrooms witnessed the professional set up with a full production team and also enjoyed a classy after event bar (with canapes) - all imbued with high quality Italian design and panache. A relaxed and stylish way to earn CE units.

Photo: Iris Ceramica’s event was organised by The Plan, who handled the event logistics and continuing education requirements.

Another Speakeasy Club event scheduled for December will follow the same format as November’s offering and feature Wilkinson Eyre. Other AIA UK Chapter sponsors are also being considered as part of this initiative, including an upcoming lunchtime webinar hosted by Beale & Co.  

Watch out for the official Announcement or check out our website ‘Events’ section for more details.

Written by: Lorraine King, AIA

65% by 2030 / ZERO by 2040: Top 200 Global Firms and Organizations Lead With 1.5°C Climate Actions

Panel Discussion from COP26 with Peter Exley, AIA President

Construction industry leaders, including AIA President, Peter Exley, show how it is possible for us to meet the 1.5°C carbon budget. They are drawn from the top firms and organisations signed up to the COP26 Communiqué, of which AIA UK is proud to be a founding signatory. Watch the panel discussion from COP26 here!

Description

By showing what's possible, we’ll embolden governments to do the same. The top 200 firms responsible for a significant portion of construction worldwide present the bold actions they are taking to decarbonize the built world in order to meet the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C carbon budget.

Speakers are a select group of dynamic senior leaders from the signatories of the COP26 Communiqué. The signatories include the largest firms and organizations in the architecture/engineering/planning sector from around the world; the sector is acting on the urgency of the climate crisis.