This website presents the research activities by staff at the School of Architecture and Cities at the University of Westminster. It is intended to keep students, teachers and scholars updated on research related activities, events and awards by members of the School and to allow them to share their work and achievements with the wider academic and professional community.

Event
“Architecture and the Construction Process” with Dan Sibert (Foster + Partners)
Thursday, 27 November 2025, 6pm
M416 (Robin Evans Room) + Online

Talk

22/09/2025
Event
“Modern Modular Construction” with Robert Barker + Jessica Barker (Stolon Studio)
Thursday, 20 November 2025, 6pm
M416 (Robin Evans Room) + Online

Talk

22/09/2025
Event
“Multi-storey Stone Construction on the Finchley Road” with Amin Taha
Thursday, 13 November 2025, 6pm
M416 (Robin Evans Room) + Online

Talk

22/09/2025
Event
“Poster Session” with Design Practices Research Group
Thursday, 6 November 2025, 6pm
M416 (Robin Evans Room) + Online

Poster session to launch the new Design Practices Research Group (DPRG) Publication, with presentations and discussion.

22/09/2025
Event
“The Edge Building” with Keb Garavito Bruhn
Thursday, 30 October 2025, 6pm
M416 (Robin Evans Room) + Online

Talk

22/09/2025
Event
“The Greenest House” with Anders Strand Luhr (Office Ten)
Thursday, 23 October 2025, 6pm
M416 (Robin Evans Room) + Online

Talk

22/09/2025
Event
“African Fabbers Atlas” by Paolo Cascone + Maddalena Laddaga | Book launch and conversation with guest panelists
Thursday, 16 October 2025, 6pm
M416 (Robin Evans Room) + Online

Book launch and panel discussion

22/09/2025
Event
“Sound and Architecture” with Paul Purgas (Emptyset)
Thursday, 9 October 2025, 6pm
M416 (Robin Evans Room) + Online

Talk

22/09/2025
Event
“Building with Bamboo” with Chris Matthews (Atelier One Engineers)
Thursday, 2 October 2025, 6pm
M416 (Robin Evans Room) + Online

Talk

22/09/2025
News
Deconstructed: “Almanaar Mosque & Cultural Centre – Faith, Space, and Community” Shukri Sultan and Matthew Lloyd Roberts

In this episode of Deconstructed, host Matthew Lloyd Roberts is joined by Shukri Sultan, a lecturer at Westminster University, to explore the story of Almanaar Mosque in West London. Together, they unpack how this unassuming building became a vital hub for faith, community, and resilience — especially in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire.

25/07/2025
Publication
/ATMOSPHERE/ The Origin of Air Grid
Victoria Watson

Victoria Watson, /ATMOSPHERE/ The Origin of Air Grid, Air Grid Publications, 2018, hardback edition 2025,
ISBN9781838018054

This is the hardback edition of my book based on the original thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, University College London, 2004. The thesis is an exploration of the sensibility of modernity, focused through a dualistic study of the work of Mies van der Rohe and aiming to critique and revise post-modernist readings of the Modern Movement in Architecture.

14/07/2025
Publication
Creative placemaking at heritage sites between material improvements and selective memory: the case of Wudadao in Tianjin
Fu, S. & Verdini, G.

Fu, S., Verdini, G. Creative placemaking at heritage sites between material improvements and selective memory: the case of Wudadao in Tianjin. Built Heritage 9, 38 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1186/s43238-025-00202-2

Wudadao, the former British concession area of Tianjin, has undergone significant regeneration over the past decade, becoming a key urban tourism destination. This regeneration, driven by a successful creative placemaking strategy, effectively protected urban heritage, reviving the glory of the 1920s foreign architecture. However, in this paper we argue that these achievements have come at a cost to the existing local community. Drawing on interviews with local authorities and civil society, historical analysis, and field observations, this paper aims to reveal the material and symbolic impact of urban regeneration on Wudadao inhabitants and their stories.

08/07/2025
Publication
Contested Good City Stories from a North Chennai Littoral
Lindsay Bremner, Nityanand Jayaraman and Karen Coelho

This article investigates the wilful destruction of Ennore Creek, a littoral wetland system in north Chennai, Tamil Nadu, by a series of shifting statist good city imaginaries expressed in plans, research reports, environmental impact assessments, government orders and court judgements. We show that these media built a powerful scaffold of legally sanctioned and scientifically backed good city narratives that reformulated the creek as a sacrificial zone for sustainable development, economic growth and logistical urbanism. Framed through the analytic of the littoral, we interrogate these developmentalist narratives and the technologies they used to contain or dispossess the fluid materiality of the creek. We then develop the idea of amphibious activism to describe the actions of backwater fishers to care for and resist the further degradation of their life world. We suggest that their activism expresses what Michel Foucault called a practice of liberty. It could not free them from the sets of relations in which they were embedded, but it enabled them to imagine and enact another way of life within them.

25/06/2025
Event
“The Counter Architecture of the British Mosque” by Shahed Saleem
26 June 2025
The Barbican

Shahed Saleem leads a conversation, unpacking the themes and ideas of his latest published collection of essays and photographs, Building Futures: The Counter Architecture of the British Mosque. The discussion will explore how migrants and diasporas create space and community, and how the post-war multicultural consensus in Britain has been shaped and challenged through the intersections of race, politics and architecture.

25/06/2025
Event
Architecture + Cities Research Forum: “Reimagining Terrain Vague” by Krystallia Kamvasinou and Lorenzo Iannizzotto
19 May 2025
Online

Urban vacant lands, terrain vague, urban voids, brownfields—are typically viewed as negative spaces awaiting profitable development, despite often harbouring rich ecological systems and supporting diverse community activities. As cities confront climate change, biodiversity loss, and spatial inequity, these undervalued spaces present untapped potential. What alternative values do these spaces hold? How might we reconcile theoretical understandings with practical interventions? When should preservation take precedence over development? The seminar discussed initial findings from research into emerging innovative practices that reimagine vacant land to address contemporary urban challenges.

25/06/2025
Publication
Localising and reimagining urban planning knowledge for effective Global South climate urbanism
Verdini, Giulio; Woltjer, Johan; Cioboata, Sabina

Verdini, G., Woltjer, J., & Cioboata, S. (2025). Localising and reimagining urban planning knowledge for effective Global South climate urbanism. Planning Practice & Research, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/02697459.2025.2474817

This paper acknowledges the limitations of the current system of urban knowledge production concerning climate change and its applicability to the Global South. It explores whether climate urbanism pedagogy, emerging in higher education, takes effectively into consideration local contexts and how this translates into curricula innovation. Drawing on insights from 14 interviews with engaged scholars and practitioners, the paper argues that advancing effective Global South climate urbanism requires reorienting planning education towards the historical specificity of places and their climate justice issues while experimenting at the same time with new forms of knowledge co-production.

11/06/2025
Event
Architecture and Cities Research Forum: Gangue Architecture by Victoria Watson
6 May 2025
Online

This seminar reflected on the author’s research with ‘air grid’ structures. It returned to an old line of inquiry, comparing air grids with the paintings of the Agnes Martin, and then turned to a new line of inquiry, looking at a form of proletarian art rooted in lead mining traditions in the Northern Pennines, called ‘spar boxes’. Researching spar boxes revealed the concept of ‘gangue material’ and shows how and why, gangue materials were produced through the value structures of lead mining. The seminar speculated on why the concept of gangue materials might be relevant for understanding air grids and their relationship to architectural design.

11/06/2025
Event
Architecture and Cities Research Forum: Place-based Strategies for Climate Resilience: Caxias do Sul, Brazil by Luz Navarro and Giulio Verdini
31 March 2025
Online

In May 2024, Caxias do Sul, in Rio Grande do Sul of Brazil, was struck by a devastating flood that resulted in over a hundred fatalities, numerous injuries, and the evacuation of thousands of residents. Research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) enabled the authors to conduct a series of workshops in Galópolis, Caxias do Sul in March 2025, highlighing potential pathways for transformative action toward building the city more resiliently.

11/06/2025
Publication
Doctor Watson Architecture: Propositions, The Architecture School
Victoria Watson

An AIR Grid Publications, Copyright 2024, Doctor VA Watson, ISBN: 9781838018047

A prototypical design for a new kind of architecture school. The idea for a new kind of architecture school began when, at the turn of the millennium, we were invited by David Greene and Samantha Hardingham to contribute to the prospectus for their speculative idea for an Invisible University. Our response was a tiny bit nonsensical, but it pointed the way to a fabulous AIR Grid architecture that not only includes the proposal set out in this book but much more besides.

14/03/2025
Publication
An Inquiry into the Architectural Identity of Herzog & de Meuron: A study of their Tate Modern, London, and the Museum of the Twentieth Century, Berlin, competition events and design strategies
Victoria Watson

Journal of Historic Buildings and Places, volume 03, 2024, ISBN 978-0-946996-39-1

At their RA summer exhibition in 2023 the architects Herzog and de Meuron claimed to not have an architectural style. By looking carefully at a select few of their projects, this essay examines what the claim means. Just as the exhibition directors had to devise a strategy for demonstrating the diversity and inventiveness of H&dM’s work within a limited space and timeframe, so it was necessary to devise a strategy for focusing on their design methods within the limited framework of a journal essay. To gain the necessary focus, the inquiry considered just two pairs of architectural competitions, both for museums of modern and contemporary art − in the cities of London and Berlin.

14/03/2025
Publication
Design Practices
Design Practices Research Group

Dr Victoria Watson & Dr Will McLean (eds); Photography Urna Sodnomjamts ©DPRG Publications, 2024, ISBN 978-1-0687997-0-9

The first published work of the Design Practices Research Group presents a catalogue of the group. The catalogue includes a brief biography of group members as well as short statement that highlights individual research and knowledge exchange ambitions. As a part of the catalogue, we have included a photograph of each researcher pictured in their research environment. The appropriate research environment is determined by the individual researchers and they variously include the design studio, offices, the fabrication lab, a building site, a library and a forest. Urna Sodnomjamts, one of our new colleagues and an early career researcher has kindly agreed to be official photographer.

14/03/2025
Event
Architecture and Cities Research Forum: “Heritage and Catastrophic Loss” by David Littlefield
6 March 2025
Online

When heritage sites are destroyed or damaged, such catastrophic events often prompt calls for restoration. Globally, the number of heritage sites at risk or already lost is staggering. Notre Dame has been expensively restored since the 2019 fire, but such care is not always possible or appropriate. In restoring a building, what and when is being restored? The building the day before the fire or the bomb? Or the building upon the day of completion? These questions were considered through a discussion of Clandon Park – an 18th century National Trust property, almost totally destroyed by fire in 2015.

10/03/2025
Event
Architecture and Cities Research Forum: “Climatic Assemblages – Siting Climate Knowledge Production” by Guy Sinclair
27 February 2025
Online

Climatic Assemblages explores the technical, social and cultural modes in which climate knowledge is assembled across the spatial, textual and technological sites of climate science and ecotheology. I investigate these sites of climate knowledge production to situate climate scientific knowledge practices and examine the relations between this as a dominant mode with an alternative view of climatic relations through Roman and Anglo-Catholic ecotheology. The pairing offers the opportunity to explore the diffractive possibility of productive adjacencies, complements and distinctions in modes of knowing climate and ways of living within climates.

10/03/2025
Event
Architecture and Cities Research Forum: “Mad or Magnificent – Mothers who Cycle with their Children in the UK” by Dawn Rahman
6 February 2025
Online

As a mother who doesn’t drive and has cycled with my son (now aged 12) in various forms since he was seven weeks old, my own experiences both positive and negative had left me intrigued to find out how other mothers were traversing the challenge of cycling with young children. Were my experiences typical of others cycling in the UK? Did other mothers have to plan where and when they can ride with their children due to lack of safe cycle infrastructure and had they encountered judgement from others for their choice of transport. A mixed method approach was pursued including focus groups, surveys and 30 semi-structured interviews.

10/03/2025
Event
Book Launch: “Sustainable and Regenerative Materials for Architecture” by Will McLean + Pete Silver
Thursday, 27 February 2025 at 6pm
Robin Evans Room (M416)

“Will and Pete inspire us here. They have trawled the network of excellent scientists and designers to find materials, design and construction that leap off the page and make you want to become a natural builder without delay.”

Jonathan Smales, Human Nature

There is a creative explosion of work taking place in architecture and design schools exploring materials such as mycelium, clay/earth, engineered timber, bio-based plastics and algae. This handbook of low- and no-carbon materials for architects and designers focuses on sustainable materials, their sourcing, technical properties and the processes required for their use in architecture. The book showcases new and rediscovered processes for material fabrication, responsible sourcing and creative material design.

06/02/2025
Event
Littoral Telling
28 November 2024
Architectural Association Field Forum

At this event, Lindsay Bremner and Dorothy Tang (National university of Singapore) told the Earth from the perspective of the littoral, the dynamic coastal zone shared by land and sea. We told stories from south and east Asia, examining the instruments used by authorities to measure and control the littoral since colonial times, and the resistance the littoral and its people have posed to such endeavours. Their presentations concluded by asking whether the littoral presented an imaginary for inhabiting the earth otherwise.The event was part of a series t the Architectural Association titled Field Forum curated by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng and Chen Zhang.

06/02/2025
Event
Link for Video of ‘Towards a Sellarsian Theory of Architecture,’ paper delivered by Sean Griffiths at the Marxism and the Pittsburgh School Conference in June 2024
June 2024
Marxism and the Pittsburgh School Conference, UCL

This is the recently uploaded YouTube video of Sean Griffith’s conference paper, “Towards a Sellarsian Theory of Architecture”, delivered in June 2024 at the Marxism and the Pittsburgh School Conference, organized by the New Centre for Practice and Research at UCL in June 2024.

24/01/2025
Event
Architecture and Cities Research Forum: ‘Learning in conflict: Jörn Janssen and the development of a Marxist-Leninist history and theory of architecture’ by Alessandro Toti
5 December 2024
Online

The presentation discussed Jörn Janssen’s theoretical and pedagogical efforts to analyse architecture from a Marxist-Leninist perspective in the early 1970s. Janssen scientifically situated architecture in the socio-economic dynamics of capitalist development, and examined it as an instrument of profit accumulation and workers’ exploitation. This understanding allowed him and his students to develop a clear agenda, aiming, to unveil the opposition between capital and labour at the core of every capitalist building; and to demonstrate that only revolutionary change could address this structural contradiction and liberate architecture from being an instrument of class exploitation.

23/12/2024
Event
Architecture and Cities Research Forum: ‘Public Engagement as Knowledge Production’ by Shahed Saleem
7 November 2024
Online

Over the last 4 years I have held public events in galleries and museums where architectural themes and ideas have been displayed, narrated and discussed. In the presentation I describe some of these events, and how they were both a representation of traditional research, and also generators of new architectural knowledge co-produced through engagement with the public.

23/12/2024
Event
‘Underground shelters: body and space in the age of aerial warfare’ by Davide Deriu
22 November 2024
Norwich University of the Arts

This paper was presented at the AHRA 2024 international conference, Body Matters (session: Contained Bodies). It critically revisited the history of London’s ‘tube shelters’ as a means of addressing the condition of civilians in the age of aerial warfare. By reappraising the transformation of the London Underground into a mass shelter during the Blitz, the paper highlighted the role of human experience, agency and resistance in the production of space.

27/11/2024
Event
Aalto in London — a talk by Professor Harry Charrington
Tuesday, 3 December 2024, 19.00
The ABA Gallery, 77 Cowcross Street, London EC1, and streamed

This lecture explores the unique qualities that made Aalto furniture so appealing to architects and the public in London, the actors and agents involved in promoting it, such as Laszló Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Read and Philip Morton-Shand, how Finmar became the model for the Aaltos when they later set up Artek in Helsinki, and how furniture became the basis for the enduring connection between Finnish and British architecture.

27/11/2024
Event
Architecture and Cities Research Forum: Urban Aerography by Lindsay Bremner
21 October 2024
Online

In this seminar, Lindsay Bremner presented her recent experimental work on urban agglomerations as aerographies rather than geographies. She developed the idea that air, far from being the in-between or backdrop to the everyday dramas of urban life, is a dynamic material agent that organizes and transforms cities in ways that are historical, political, meteorological and affective. Drawing from philosophy, cultural geography and anthropology, she developed three ideas about air’s urban material agency – weathering, datafying and mattering, and explored these ideas in the city of Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu in South India.

04/11/2024
Publication
Counter-Mapping, Counter-Histories, and Insurgencies of Subjugated Knowledges in the Fisher Struggle for Ennore Creek
Nityanand Yayaraman, Lindsay Bremner, Karen Coelho, Saravanan Kasinathan

Antipode, online first, 29 October 2024

The Ennore wetlands in North Chennai, India were once dense with diverse habitats and interwoven histories. Many of these histories began to unravel from the 1960s onwards, when state-sponsored heavy industry began encroaching into and polluting the wetlands. Local fishers, whose lives, livelihoods, and cultural worlds were ignored by these changes, fought back in a campaign to reclaim and restore the wetlands. This paper analyses how the Save Ennore Creek Campaign and Ennore fishers used counter-mapping strategies to reveal the state’s wilful suppression of fisher knowledge and worldviews using maps and plans.

04/11/2024
Publication
Women’s religious communities and patronage in the UK: two case studies
Kate Jordan

Jordan, Kate. 2024. ‘Women’s religious communities and patronage in the UK: two case studies’,. Actas de Arquitectura Religiosa Contemporánea 11: 102-115. https://doi.org/10.17979/aarc.2024.11.11340.

This article discusses women as architectural clients through an examination of Roman Catholic nuns as patrons, designers and in some cases builders of religious architecture. The paper offers two case studies to explore the roles that women assumed in religious communities: the first, a chapel commissioned and built by a community of Carmelite nuns in Wales during the 1950s and the second, a recently completed abbey in the North of England. The examples highlight the evolution of female agency in the built environment and how this has been impacted by the professionalisation of architecture.

28/10/2024
Publication
Sacred, Spiritual Secular: Spaces of Faith in the Twenty-First Century
Kate Jordan, Shahed Saleem

K. Jordan and S. Saleem (eds) ‘Sacred, Spiritual Secular: Spaces of Faith in the Twenty-First Century’ Guest edited special issue of Architecture and Culture, Volume 10 no.4 (2024)

The starting point for this Special Issue of Architecture and Culture was a conference hosted by the University of Westminster in association with the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in 2019, entitled “Spiritual Sacred Secular: The Architecture of Faith in Modern Britain.” While the conference focused on Britain, we were aware of an important gap in the literature on global faith spaces in late modernity, and sought to explore it through a collection of written papers. The contributions to this issue have been selected to highlight the wide diversity of methods and practices used to read faith spaces.

14/10/2024
Event
Architecture + Cities Research Forum: The place and use of AI in a human society, and vice versa (this title was not generated by ChatGPT)
10 October 2024
Online

In this talk, Gurtner and Delgado raised awareness of the potential massive paradigm shifts that may come with AI. They summarised the latest development in AI and discussed how they will likely shape the future. They presented some conundrums on AI use, and then focused on how AI can be used right now for research. They concluded by considering the implications of AI for Universities, researchers and students.

14/10/2024
Event
Architecture + Cities Research Forum: “Diagreid Structures with Torsional Integrity – Torsegrity” by Pete Silver
30 September 2024
Online

In this presentation, Pete silver discussed the origins, development, and future applications of a new, lightweight, low-energy, structural system for which he was granted a UK patent in 2022 and that he describes as ‘torsegrity’.

14/10/2024
Publication
Anthropocene Desire Lines: A Coal Story
Lindsay Bremner and John Cook

Bremner, L. & Cook, J., (2024) “Anthropocene Desire Lines: A Coal Story”, Anthropocenes – Human, Inhuman, Posthuman 5(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.16997/ahip.1630

In this experimental visual essay, we follow an imaginary lump of coal across space and time from its Gondwanan beginnings, through its extraction from the Talcher Coalfields in Odisha in India, combustion in a thermal power plant in Ennore in Tamil Nadu, and into the future through its multitude of postcombustion afterlives. We track how flows of earthly matter that begin in subterranean strata, and, mobilized by ideas of power, growth and national pride, result in indifference towards the molecular colonization of bodies, soils, waters and airs they produce.

14/10/2024
News
Climate Cartographics win three awards from the British Cartographic Society

John Cook and Ben Pollock recently won three awards from the British Cartographic Society (BCS) for cartographic work submitted by their non-profit design research studio, Climate Cartographics. For further information go to the URL accompanying this post.

14/10/2024
Publication
Reform or Revolution: Architectural Theory in West Berlin and Zurich (1967–72)
Alessandro Toti

Toti, Alessandro. 2024. “Reform or Revolution: Architectural Theory in West Berlin and Zurich (1967–72).” Architectural Theory Review, June, 1–20. doi:10.1080/13264826.2024.2356373.

The article explores the evolution of architectural and urban theory in the wake of the 1960s politicisation of the architecture faculties of TU Berlin and ETH Zürich. Focusing on Oswald Mathias Ungers, Jörn Janssen, and their students, it examines a symposium, an exhibition, and a seminar that shaped divergent perspectives on architectural theory.

10/06/2024
News
Patented structural prototype selected for the 2024 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition

Pete Silver’s patented structural prototype has been selected for the 2024 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. The prototype was built at the Marylebone Campus. It is made of carbon fibre rods held in torsion by rigid carbon fibre tubes, with reinforced polyamide connecting components. All materials were sponsored by the School of Architecture + Cities and assistance was provided by Fabrication Lab staff and by Dr Will McLean. Carbon fibre rods and tubes were supplied by Easy Composites Ltd and connecting components by RK Rose+Krieger GmbH. For a full description of UK patent number GB2594037B – Helical Structural Framework with Torsional Integrity – see URL

03/06/2024
Publication
Olympic Urbanism: Past, Present Future
Andrew Smith, John Gold, Margaret Gold

Smith, A., Gold, J. R., & Gold, M. M. (2024). Olympic urbanism: past, present and future. Planning Perspectives, 39(3), 487–499. https://doi.org/10.1080/02665433.2024.2344598

The urbanization of the Olympic Games and the continuing evolution of the IOC-host city relationship invites deeper consideration of Olympic urbanism and its role in shaping multiple cities across the world. This special issue of Planning Perspectives takes up this challenge, placing particular emphasis on planning histories and historiographies. The timing of its publication in 2024 is significant. Besides being the year that celebrates the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad, 2024 marks the centenary of the previous Paris Summer Olympics and of the first ever Winter Olympic Games at Chamonix in France’s Haute-Savoie

23/05/2024
Publication
Theatres of change: rethinking cinemas as places of worship
Kate Jordan

Future for Religious Heritage, March 2024

In the UK, as in countries across the world, former cinemas have been widely reused as places of worship. While there has been some research into the reuse of cinemas as churches, there has been little work on the broad repurposing of this building type for different faith groups. This article considers the way that buildings offer a snapshot of faith and society in the twenty-first century and reveals the extent to which religious adherence is, in fact, growing in many of Britain’s cities.

16/05/2024
Publication
Gurdwaras, mosques temples and churches: how faith groups are reviving England’s old cinemas
Kate Jordan

The Conversation, May 15th 2024

Feature article on research findings from the project ‘Moving pictures: reusing cinemas as places of worship in the diaspora.’

16/05/2024
Publication
Pioneering the park
Karen Fitzsimon

Landscape, Autumn, 2023, 6-13

As Liverpool’s Birkenhead Park is placed on the UK government’s Tentative List for consideration as a World Heritage site, this article explores the park’s important global role as a pioneer in public park provision. It demonstrates the design lineage with Central Park, New York City, and confirms the bold assertion that “without Birkenhead Park there would be no Central Park, and without Central Park there would be no New York City.” The article explores how the scale and concept of such historic parks is still relevant to contemporary life, especially in urban responses to climate change.

16/05/2024
Publication
The Power of the Pocket Park
Karen Fitzsimon

“The power of the pocket park,” Landscape, Spring, 2024, 42-44

In a journal issue dedicated to ‘Landscapes for Living’, this article argues for the role of pocket parks as part of green space provision for urban housing. The article explores two important modernist pocket parks – influential Paley Park in New York City, created via philanthropy, and Crabtree Fields in central London – a park forged through the power of community activity.

16/05/2024
Publication
Picturing Cities: The Photobook as Urban Narrative
Davide Deriu and Angelo Maggi (editors)

Deriu, D. and Maggi, A. (eds), Picturing Cities: The Photobook as Urban Narrative (FrancoAngeli, 2024).

This Open Access anthology examines how photobooks have variously been deployed to read, analyse and interpret cities through curated sequences of images – often in conjunction with literary or critical texts. Stemming from an urban history conference that was held in Bologna, a broad range of illustrated essays shed light on this particular genre of publication. The contents are organised into four sections: framing modernities; urban imaginaries; visual journeys; and politics of representation.

02/05/2024
Event
Architecture +Cities Research Forum: “ger means home” by Urna Sodnomjamts
4 April 2024
Online

In this seminar, Urna Sodnomjamts presented her ongoing research into the metamorphosis of the nomadic herders of the Mongol Steppe into urban dwellers of Ulaanbaatar city, the capital of Mongolia.She discussed the circular economy and the land uses that sustained the ancient communities and the political evolution, environmental realities and economic challenges that, over the last two centuries have threatened their continuity. She also analysed the traditional Mongolian ger (yurt), its structure and its adaptations and the history and theory behind land-use and the interpretations of custodial vs settler occupation.

01/05/2024
Event
Architecture + Cities Research Forum: Events as Prototyping Opportunities for Sustainable Innovation by Chiara Orefice
28 March 2024
Online

This seminar introduces ongoing research on the role that events play in fostering innovation in a sustainable way. It focuses on how events can become places and spaces for identifying and experimenting with new forms of sustainable living and doing business. It is based on a multi-disciplinary study combining a systemic perspective derived from institutional theory with a new view of prototyping from service design research. To understand how events can contribute to sustainable innovation, we need to consider the role they play in the ecosystem that provides the context where stakeholders negotiate values and agree on a common agenda.

03/04/2024
Publication
The Poverty of Emboiment in the work of Juhani Pallasmaa
Sean Griffiths

Griffiths, S. ‘The poverty of embodiment in the work of Juhani Pallasmaa’. Architecture_MPS 27, 1
(2024): 2. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.amps.2024v27i1.002.

In books such as The Eyes of the Skin, architectural theorist Juhani Pallasmaa posits unmediated sensual encounters as the site of authentic engagement with the built environment. Such ideas, derived from phenomenology are very prevalent in architectural discourse today. In this article, I show that they are also highly problematic. Pallasmaa’s arguments are shown to be politically naive and philosophically unsound though analyses of works by Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe. Drawing on philosophical, historical and neuroscientific sources, the article posits an alternative, rationalist account of architectural experience in which the intellect and the senses are entwined.

03/04/2024
Event
Book Launch for Research Handbook on Urban Design
20 March 2024
M416, Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster

This pivotal publication unites a diverse array of established and emerging scholars in urban design research from around the globe, showcasing a wide range of perspectives and insights. The event was a vibrant gathering of about 50 attendees in person and online, reflecting the global interest and relevance of the topics discussed. Insightful presentations included D Damyanovic with ‘Cool public spaces for the cities’; J Woudstra with ‘Trees and urban open spaces’; K Kamvasinou with ‘Crisis and Temporary Public Spaces’; H Kamalipour with ‘Informal Urban Design’ and E Pafka/K Dovey with ‘Enquiry by mapping’.

28/03/2024
Event
Architecture + Cities Research Forum: “Mega Events and the Development of Emerging Suburban Tourist Destinations” by Ilaria Pappalepore
11 March 2024
Online

As global tourist cities increasingly experience the negative impacts of overtourism in inner city districts, mega events such as the Olympic and Paralympic Games can be seen as opportunities to develop tourism in peripheral areas in need of regeneration. The Paris 2024 Olympics are a case in point because, while many Olympic and Paralympic events will take place in iconic venues in the historic centre, some of the key Olympic venues and new developments are located in the suburban district of Seine-Saint-Denis. During the bidding process, the expected legacy for the Seine-Saint-Denis region played a crucial role in supporting Paris 2024’s bid.

21/03/2024
Event
“Reading whiteness in the refurbishment of London’s historic churches” by Kate Jordan
8 March 2024
‘The Churches and the City’ conference, University of Bologna

This conference paper explored whether a current trend for white interiors suggests new directions in the social and religious cultures of Christianity. To examine this, the paper discussed three recently refurbished churches in London as case studies, through which to explore these questions: St John-at-Hackney; St Augustine’s, Hammersmith.

18/03/2024
Event
Architecture + Cities Research Forum: “The Production of Estate” by Julian Williams
4 March 2024
Online

This seminar explored the value of social and cultural theory as a means to understand the history of the of the estate.It drew on Bourdieu’s schema of habitus that connects individual practices within a wider field of play that encompasses estate management, public health and urban regeneration. The seminar also engaged with the concept of the geo-body, unpacking the relationship between map demarcations, and the territorial quarantining of things, people and relations to be either valued and kept, or eviscerated, as well as the production of emptiness as a starting point for the production of community, and the doxa of slum clearance, urban renewal, and estate regeneration.

06/03/2024
Publication
Toilet Talk: (Trans)Gendered negotiation of public spaces
John Somers; Shani Burke; Philippa Carr; Mirko Demasi

Somers, J., Demasi, M., Burke, S., & Carr, P. (2023). ‘Toilet talk: (Trans) Gendered negotiation of public spaces.’ Routledge International Handbook of Innovative Qualitative Psychological Research. Eds. by Tseliou, E., Demuth, C., Georgaca, E., & Gough, B. Routledge

Public toilet provision in the UK fails to meet the needs of cis women while trans communities are absent from current building regulations. This research explores how individuals negotiate differing positions on toilet provision and accessibility. The data were formed of online posts on Dezeen, a forum for building design professionals, and Mumsnet, a parenting forum, in response to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government “Technical review on increasing accessibility and provision of toilets for men and women”. Discursive psychology was used to explore how accessibility to toilets is constructed.

28/02/2024
Event
Architecture + Cities Research Forum: “Agonistic Spaces – Investigating Narratives and Practices of Dissensus in El Cabanal, 2015-2018” by Luz Navarro
22 February 2024

This research seminar explored the potential of dissensus as an agent of design in the current post-political arrangement. Dissensus is understood as an opportunity to shape alternative ways of conceptualising, imagining, planning, and designing urban space, contesting hegemonic urban agendas. Drawing from her doctoral research, Luz investigated the transformative potential of dissensus and its materialisation into agonistic spaces by looking at everyday practices of resistance to hegemonic discourses of urban regeneration from 2015 to 2018 in El Cabanyal, a contested neighbourhood in Valencia.

23/02/2024
Event
Vesper 9 – The Adversary
5 March 2024
UoW, Marylebone Hall, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS

The editorial board of Vesper: Journal of Architecture, Arts and Theory is going to hold a panel discussion with writers and critics to launch their ninth issue: ‘The Adversary’ (Vesper is published in English and Italian by the Iuav University of Venice). The event is organised by the Westminster Law & Theory Lab in collaboration with the Architectural Humanities Research Group.

The event will be in room MG14, Marylebone Hall, at 18:00. Drinks reception to follow. Registration via Eventbrite. All welcome.

23/02/2024
Publication
Climate Adaptation and Cultural Resilience. The Case of the Oasis of Figuig, Morocco
Verdini, G., El Ganadi, Y., Nolf, C., Vannoorbeeck, F., Anouar, S. and Siddiki, A.

Verdini, G., El Ganadi, Y., Nolf, C., Vannoorbeeck, F., Anouar, S. and Siddiki, A. (ed.) 2023. Climate Adaptation and Cultural Resilience. The Case of the Oasis of Figuig, Morocco. Milan ILAUD PRESS.

This book addresses the environmental and social challenges of climate adaptation of Figuig, an oasis in the Oriental Region of Morocco still alimented by traditional underground water conduits. This fragile ecosystem, weakened by persisting socioeconomic decline, is now threatened by the impact of climate change, thus requiring new transformative approaches. Scenarios of resilience and sustainability were discussed by an interdisciplinary group of Moroccan and international scholars, practitioners, and students with local stakeholders and community associations, during an intense planning and design charrette.

14/02/2024
Event
Architecture + Cities Research Forum: “A Foot on the Earth, a Hand in the Sky: Gaza Experimental Lab” by Nasser Golzari, Yara Sharif, and Francois Gerardin
12 February 2024
Online

The presentation unpacked current work by the Gaza Experimental Lab to rethink Gaza and its reconstruction with interventions that reimagine a world built out of urgency and scarcity, challenging colonial powers and the geography of exclusion by re-appropriating discarded resources. Recent work includes a self-built prototype that tries to offer alternatives on the ground by using materials salvaged from the ruins. The components assembled are an accumulation of what has been collected, used, or appropriated in collaboration with families to reconstruct fragments of their neighbourhoods and homes in Gaza and Palestine.

14/02/2024
Event
Architecture + Cities Research Forum: “Making Sense of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods”, Ersilia Verlinghieri and Harrie Larrington Spencer
5 February 2024
Online

Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs), have been controversial and divisive as they challenge the established car-centric social order. In this presentation, we use Membership Category Analysis (MCA) to analyse differences in how residents who are for, against or unsure about the scheme frame what the LTN is and does, contributing to reshape or disrupt automobility and assign new meanings or moral values to being in public space. We focus on the ways in which two opposing sets of characters, ‘the good driver vs. the irresponsible cyclist’ and ‘the vulnerable cyclist vs. the negligent driver’, are mobilised to frame stories about the scheme and create narratives about what the LTN does.

07/02/2024
Publication
On the Edge
Davide Deriu

Davide Deriu’s photo-essay, ‘On the Edge’, inaugurates the new web issue published by the Canadian Centre of Architecture (CCA), which focuses on how different measures and regulations ensure or prevent safety in our built environment. The piece weaves together a series of photographs from the CCA collections that feature protective barriers such as handrails and parapets. It revisits prominent place in the canon of Western architectural history in order to explore how photographs can visualise the tense state of being on the edge. By disrupting the logic of the archive, the essay draws on the indeterminate character of fragments to provoke new insights and interpretations.

07/02/2024
Publication
The People’s Plan for the Eco-restoration of Ennore Creek
Nityanand Jayaraman, Lindsay Bremner at al.

An eco-restoration plan prepared by the team of the British Academy funded project, Reimagining the Good City from Ennore Creek, in consultation with the residents, elders and fishers of Ennore, Chennai.

06/02/2024
Exhibition
Ghosts, Monsters and Dreams
Ashvita’s Art Gallery, Mylapore, Chennai
26 January 2024

An exhibition, film screenings, play performance and workshop to Reimagine the Good City from Ennore Creek, as part of the British Academy funded research project by the same name.

06/02/2024
Publication
Research Handbook on Urban Design
Krystallia Kamvasinou

Krystallia Kamvasinou has a chapter titled “Crisis and temporary public spaces: reflections from London, UK” published in the Research Handbook on Urban Design, edited by Marion Roberts & Suzy Nelson (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2024). Gathering together scholars across the globe, the book demonstrates the depth and rigour of 21st century urban design research. Krystallia’s chapter explores adaptive, temporary public space interventions in London during two pivotal moments, the 2008 global financial downturn and the COVID19 public health emergency, and discusses their longer-term contribution to reimagining cities.

05/02/2024
Event
Architecture + Cities Research Forum: Sites of Learning by Scott David Batty
29 January 2024
Online

This presentation explored the role of the construction site as an essential component of architectural education. It addressed the questions: What kind of educational experience do construction sites offer to architecture students and how is this different from campus based learning? What is unique about the building site as an educational environment? How is this type of learning an example of active engagement and equity, diversity and inclusion? Scott drew on his work with a cross section of over 800 students and architectural practice and the construction industry in London.

23/01/2024
Publication
Routledge Encyclopaedia of Technology and the Humanities
P. Silver and W.F. McLean

Routledge will publish their much-anticipated Encyclopaedia of Technology and the Humanities on the 29th April this year. The book covers topics such as archaeology, cultural heritage, design, fashion, linguistics, music and philosophy. The field of architecture is represented by Pete Silver and Will Mclean in a chapter entitled A Critical Pedagogy for Architectural Technology.

23/01/2024
Event
Spaces/Times/People: Health and Architectural History
22 December 2023
Middle East Technical University, Ankara

The 13th METU Architectural History Graduate Symposium was held in Ankara on December 21-22, 2023, and explored multiple interconnections between health and architectural and environmental histories. At this symposium, Davide Deriu delivered a keynote lecture (online) based on his recent book, On Balance: Architecture and Vertigo. The talk was the closing event of the programme and was followed by a lively Q&A session.

08/01/2024
Event
“Women’s Religious Communities and Patronage in the UK: Two Case Studies” by Kate Jordan
23-25 November 2023
Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain

The paper was delivered as the inaugural lecture at the 8th International Conference on Contemporary Religious Architecture: The Client.

13/12/2023
Publication
White Spirit: Situating Whiteness in Contemporary Church Architecture
Kate Jordan

K. Jordan, ‘White Spirit: Situating Whiteness in Contemporary Church Architecture’ Architectural Histories, Vol 11(1) pp.1-14 2023

In his polemical tract, The Present State of Ecclesiastical Architecture in England published in 1843, AWN Pugin condemned the ‘vogue’ for whitewashed church interiors that had characterised Protestant iconoclasm: for him, the return to colour and darkness was an indispensable backdrop to the reawakening of ritual, tradition and the sacred. In 19th-century Christian theologies, colour (or the lack of it) was profoundly important: no decorative scheme was ever applied without considering the religious implications. The long history of whiteness as a trope in Christian visual culture has been well documented but little attention has been paid to its meaning in late modernity. In the 21st century, whiteness is understood as a polyvalent and freighted concept, bearing implications that reach beyond the religious and into secular critical discourses. In this essay, I explore the contemporary vogue for whiteness as a motif in church architecture, focusing on its political and cultural significance in relation to the decline of traditional Christian worship and the rise of ‘believing without belonging’.

13/12/2023
Event
Aesthetics and Rhetorics of Climate Change Data Panel
31 August 2023
Royal Geographical Society Annual Conference 2023

An inter-disciplinary two-session panel that invited contributions that presented, reflected on or critically analysed visual / aesthetic cultures of climate change data, the scientific and artistic imaginaries they draw from, the manners in which they make climate change and its data palpable, the new collaborations and alliances they foster and the new publics they create. The panel was organised with Neal White (School of Arts, University of Westminster), Roberto Bottazzi (The Bartlett, UCL) and Kaya Barry (Griffith Centre for Social Cultural Research, AU). It included presentations by Jonathan Cane, Rohit Majumbdar, Mariska Versantvoort, John Zhang, John Cook, Guy Sinclair and others.

04/12/2023
Event
Counter-Mapping and Alternative Knowledge in the Struggle for Ennore Creek
28-30 June 2023
‘Weaving Worlds: Speculations Between Affect and Evidence’ Conference, Delft University of Technology

This presentation discussed the counter-mapping strategies used by the fishers of Ennore Creek in north Chennai, alongside other ways of visibilising their struggle (protests, tours, festivals, music videos), to resist the degradation of their creek-based lives and livelihoods by a state-sponsored heavy industry complex, facilitated by the manipulation of maps. It focused on one instance of counter mapping, when the fishers’ map was not a map at all, but a lively demonstration of fishers standing thigh deep in water, protesting the depiction of the water as land on a fraudulent map issued by the State to justify encroachment into the creek.

04/12/2023
Event
“Reimagining the ‘Good City’ from Ennore Creek” by Lindsay Bremner
24 March 2023
Annual Meeting of the American Aasociation of Geographers 2023, Geographies of Life Panel

At this panel, Lindsay Bremner presented ongoing work by an interdisciplinary team of researchers, activists and fishers to rethink the meaning of what constitutes a good city from Ennore Creek in North Chennai in India, as part of a British Academy funded research project. The presentation engaged with ideas of the Good City that have shaped Chennai since the early 20th Century, and presented provisional ideas emerging from a fisher-led ‘People’s Plan’ to reimagine Ennore creek not only as a human lifeworld but as a becoming-world of multi-species entanglement, as the basis of good-citiness-to-come.

04/12/2023
Event
Architecture + Cities Research Forum: “Creative placemaking in heritage sites: The case of Wudadao, Tianjin, China” by Shengkang Fu
11 December 2023
Online

In recent years, Creative Placemaking has played an essential role in urban intangible heritage management. However, the trade-off between economic development and urban conservation might lead to unsustainable outcomes, such as property-led development, commercialization, and gentrification, and these side effects would harm the interests of creative actors and stakeholders in the community. In this seminar, the preliminary findings of PhD research creative placemaking in Wudadao, Tian-jin, China, will be presented.

04/12/2023
Event
Architecture + Cities Research Forum: ‘On Architecture and Language’ by Sean Griffiths
30 November 2023
Online

What is the proper relationship between architecture and language? How does the way this relationship, as it is currently construed, allow or constrain architecture’s capacity to address the fundamental political and environmental crises of our time? Where does the uniquely human activity of producing architectural experience sit in relation to current conceptions of our relationship to nature as informed by science? Part of a wide-ranging research project, these are some of the questions examined in a book proposal, putatively entitled Against Poetics – On Architecture and Language, to be discussed at this research seminar.

04/12/2023
Publication
‘The Growing Space’ Live Project in Architecture Today
Maria Kramer & Corinna Dean

Masters Architecture students at the University of Westminster have completed a lightweight, prefabricated timber structure that forms part of a therapeutic gardening project in east London. Designed by the Live Design Studio for Masters DS20 Architecture students at the University of Westminster, The Growing Space forms part of the bustling citizen community hub at London’s Cody Dock. Constructed from Douglas Fir, the lightweight timber structure provides a space for horticultural activities. The project was initiated and led by Maria Kramer.

Partners: Webb Yates Engineers, Nicholas Alexander, OfCA, Gasworks Dock Partnership

Sponsor: Rodeca

Funding: University of Westminster QHT Fund

23/11/2023
Event
The Power of Events – Launch of the app and collaboration with University of Westminster | Chiara Orefice, Lindsey Hanford, and Josef Jammerbund
17 October 2023
Fyvie Hall at Regent Street Campus

The Power of Events is an industry-led initiative that aims to showcase the UK Events Industry. The not-for-profit organisation provides a platform that gathers all the major industry players and collaborates with selected universities in the country to carry out research on the social, cultural and economic value of events. The Tourism and Events Team at UoW hosted the launch of the PoW app on October 17th at Fyre Hall, Regents Campus. The app aims to engage students, industry professionals and academics in future research projects that will support the advocacy work carried out by the PoW. The event was attended by students, industry representatives and alumni.

14/11/2023
News
Dr Stroma Cole speaks at major industry conference on driving sustainability in tourism through equality and inclusion

Dr Stroma Cole, Reader in the School of Architecture and Cities, spoke at the Mainstreaming Net Positive Hospitality Summit, organised by the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance, on driving sustainability in tourism through equality and inclusion.

The event explored how to push positive change in the hospitality industry while keeping sustainability at the heart of operations. The organisation has recently launched a five-year strategy to support the growth of the sector sustainably and responsibly to support their goal of bringing the hospitality industry together to tackle worldwide environmental and social challenges.

07/11/2023
Event
Pietro Canonica & Atatürk
3 November 2023
Italian Cultural Institute, Istanbul

This one-day conference, hosted and sponsored by the Italian Cultural Institute of Istanbul, reappraised the cultural, social and political relations between Turkey and Italy in the early period of the Turkish Republic. Davide Deriu was invited to give a talk based on his AHRC-funded research on western perceptions of modern Ankara. Focusing on the figures of Atatürk and Pietro Canonica (the Italian artist who sculpted several monuments of the Turkish leader), the event advanced new historiographic and critical interpretations. A bilingual publication will follow.

07/11/2023
Event
Architecture + Cities Research Forum: “Mediating Mobility at the School Gate: Interpreting London’s School Street Schemes” by Asa Thomas
13 November 2023
Online

Since 2016 local authorities in London have pursued a novel policy of closing the streets in front of schools to cars during pick up and drop off times. These ‘School Street’ schemes were initially relatively marginal but since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic have increased dramatically, now covering nearly a third of state-funded primary schools in the city. This seminar reports on the work conducted as part of a doctoral research project at the Active Travel Academy focusing on these schemes.

07/11/2023
Exhibition
V&A Ramadan Pavilion by Shahed Saleem
Victoria & Albert Museum
4 March 2023 – 1 May 2023

An installation designed as an assemblage of architectural parts drawn from the V&A collection of drawings and photographs of historic Islamic architecture. This is intended to reflect the way that British mosques have been built by their communities, where they reference various traditions of Islamic history through architectural symbols.

Ramadan Tent Project is an award-winning charity established in 2013 with a mission of bringing communities communities together, curated the pavilion and hosted a series of artistic, cultural, creative events to inspire and engage audiences from all backgrounds.

07/11/2023
Event
Moving Pictures: The Adaptive Reuse of Cinemas as Diaspora Places of Worship | Kate Jordan and Julie Marsh
22 September 2023
76th Annual International Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Montreal, virtual session

This paper explored faith and diaspora in the contemporary urban landscape through an examination of the adaptive reuse of listed twentieth-century cinemas in London by migrant communities. The paper considered encounters between heritage bodies, local communities and faith groups, examining intersections of the sacred and secular: assimilation and autonomy.

01/11/2023
Publication
Modernity and Monasticism: Roman and Anglo-Catholic Monasteries in the Twentieth Century
Kate Jordan

Jordan, K., ‘Modernity and Monasticism: Roman and Anglo-Catholic Monasteries in the Twentieth Century’ in Doig and Barnwell (eds) Places of Worship in Britain and Ireland 1929-1990, Shaun Tyas (2023) pp 128-149

This chapter offers a critical overview of the architecture of Roman and Anglo-Catholic religious communities in the twentieth century.

01/11/2023
Publication
‘Architecture and Buildings: Building the Post-Emancipation Church’
Kate Jordan

Jordan, K., ‘Architecture and Buildings: Building the Post-Emancipation Church’ in Mangion and O’Brien (eds) The Oxford History of British and Irish Catholicism, Oxford University Press, (2023) pp 56-77

This chapter makes a critical reading of the buildings commissioned for the Catholic Church in Britain and Ireland between 1830 and 1913

01/11/2023
Event
Architecture + Cities Research Forum: “Accessibility and Connectivity Knowledge Hub for Urban Transformation in Europe (ACUTE)” with Enrica Papa and Sabina Cioboata
2 November 2023
Online

With the aim of envisaging more sustainable urban development pathways that address current global challenges, a series of projects were funded under the Joint Programming Initiative of the European Commission call on Urban Accessibility and Connectivity (ERA-NET ENUAC, 2021-2024). Within this framework, ACUTE (the Accessibility and Connectivity Knowledge Hub for Urban Transformation in Europe) was launched in 2022 in order to synthesize ENUAC project results. The seminar will introduce the ACUTE knowledge hub and present a series of research findings and innovative solutions on accessibility and connectivity across 15 European projects.

27/10/2023
Event
Architecture + Cities Research Forum: “Climate Cartographics” by John Cook and Ben Pollock
16 October 2023
Online

In this research seminar, John Cook and Ben Pollock will present the work of Climate Cartographics, a UKRI funded proof of concept grant that followed from the ERC grant funded project Monsoon Assemblages. They will discuss a series of pilot projects undertaken for external clients, as a way of testing cartographic and service delivery methods, with a view to setting Climate Cartographics up as a self sustaining company.

09/10/2023
Event
Architecture + Cities Research Forum: “A comparative study of water insecurity and gender-based violence in Indonesia and Peru” by Stroma Cole
5 October 2023
Online

Gender based violence is a global pandemic and water insecurity is increasing in intensity and extent. In this seminar, Stroma Cole discussed a study that used qualitative and quantitative data to examine the association between these two global health threats. A significant positive association was found between household water insecurity and reported gender-based violence in Sumba, Indonesia. The concept of ‘gender-based water violence’ was defined as the spectrum of stressors associated with water insecurity that are so extreme as to significantly threaten human health and well-being, particularly that of women and girls.

09/10/2023
Event
Re-Imagine Coral Reef take part in Createch ’23 conference & exhibition
22 September 2023
Ambika P3, University of Westminster

Re-Imagining Coral Reefs, a project led by John Zhang utilising mixed reality technology as a tool for cross-disciplinary research and climate data communication, took part in this year’s Creatch’23 conference.

29/09/2023
Event
Sites of Learning: Sites of Meaning
22-27 September 2023
Fabrication Lab + Ambika P3

CREATECH ‘23 is an International Conference and Exhibition on technology for the design, creative, and digital industries. The event is transdisciplinary and multimedia, encouraging wide participation across the spectrum of research and practice. The conference provides a dynamic forum to present new work and share ideas around the creative opportunities enabled by emerging technologies, while the public exhibition and participatory workshops offer hands-on experience of the technologies and practices being discussed.

28/09/2023
Exhibition
Technologies of Care: Thought, Cardboard and Silver Paint
Createch, University of Westminster, Marylebone Campus, Ambika P3. London
22 – 27 September 2023

Description (event/project) / Abstract (publication only): Unproductive work is sometimes called art, or waste. We don’t call it that we call it care.

DWA’s proposed new structure at the heart of the City of London is a cross between a museum and a university, its key function is to investigate technologies of care.

Such technologies are counter-creative, pointing away from capitalism’s endless accumulation and constant change. Technologies of care look after things, nothing is art, nothing waste.

(with many thanks to Dr Alessandro Ayuso for letting us use his leap models)

28/09/2023
Publication
Doctor Watson Architects Incomplete Works Volume Five
Victoria Watson

ISBN: 9781838018030

This volume of Incomplete Works gathers together a number of speculative design projects made by Doctor Watson Architects in the early years of the 21st century. Most, if not all, of the projects began as a response to a specific architectural competition brief, however, DWA never were interested in winning a competition.

28/09/2023
Event
“Sun, sea, sand? Motivations to visit Za’atari Refugee Camp”, Interpreting Ephemeral Heritage of the Displaced Communities: Case Study of Syrian Refugees in Jordan
3 October 2023, 1pm
M328, Marylebone Campus

This talk will interrogate outsiders’ motivations to visit a refugee camp in an attempt to understand the relationship between outsiders’ gaze and ephemeral heritage of the displaced communities, as well as comment on the ethical implications of these activities. As the first Place & Experience research group meeting for 2023/2024 Academic Year, this talk will be an opportunity to hear about existing research activities and build international links, as well as for the speakers to hear your input and expressions of interest.

27/09/2023
Event
Technical Studies Thursday Evening Lectures
5th October – 7th December
Robin Evans Room – M416

The Thursday evening ‘open’ lecture series highlights new technological developments in the fields of architecture, engineering and environmental design. This year, talks cover regenerative construction, low-carbon engineering, retrofit, and materials technology. The series is organised by Will McLean and the talks are filmed by Teo Cruz. The talks take place at 6pm every Thursday evening in room M416 starting on 5th October. Talks are simultaneously live-streamed and recorded with links to stream and recordings found via URL link below.

27/09/2023
News
Archigram Archival Project

After being off-line for some time, the Archigram Archival Project is now once again available to view online via the British Library’s UK Web Archive.

04/07/2023
Publication
The agency of small things: indicators of ownership on the streets of Liverpool and Belfast
David Littlefield

Littlefield D (2023). “The agency of small things: indicators of ownership on the streets of Liverpool and Belfast”, chapter within, Everyday Streets: Inclusive approaches to understanding and designing streets.
Edited by Agustina Martire, Birgit Hausleitner, and Jane Clossick. UCL Press.

Streets are, on the face of it, physical spaces comprising the raw material of urban design and architecture. This physical realm, however, represents only a small part of the “street”; there is a deeper reality of social constructions guiding and encoding behaviours. Drawing on Actor-Network Theory and New Materialism I suggest these social constructions have the force of a “thing” – just as much force as a physical thing such as a wall.

04/07/2023
Publication
Between the Sacred and Secular: Faith, Space and Place in the Twenty-First Century
Kate Jordan

Kate Jordan (2023) Between the Sacred and Secular: Faith, Space, and Place in the Twenty-First Century, Architecture and Culture, DOI: 10.1080/20507828.2023.2211823

In his 1954 poem, “Church Going,” Phillip Larkin anticipated the end of religion and the ruination of Britain’s churches. “What remains,” Larkin asked “when disbelief has gone? Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky.” In one respect, Larkin was right: the decline of traditional worship in the West did produce scores of redundant churches. But he was also wrong: the tendency to view abandoned churches as proof that ultimately “belief must die,” misses the myriad ways in which faith has, in fact, simply reconfigured and produced new spaces. Such weaknesses in the Western-centric disenchantment model have been recognized in the social sciences, where scholars are increasingly looking toward the built environment to understand new alignments in religion and society. However, the field remains somewhat overlooked by architectural theorists and historians. This article explores religious practices from an architectural perspective, offering an overview of faith, space and place in the twenty-first century.

24/06/2023
Event
Architecture + Cities Research Forum: Let’s talk about contamination: Green, Blue and Grey Corridors
12 June 2023

The River Lee, which can be described as a ‘technoscape’ has been teased and contorted by years of engineering so that it bears little resemblance to its ‘original’ course. In this presentation, Corinna Dean discusses the River Lee as an ecological system interwoven with its urban surroundings by talking about the LIVE project, ‘Liquid Futures: Floating Biodiversity Habitats’ which she carried out with the environmental charity Cody Dock on the River Lee. The co-production project between Dean, members of Cody Dock and students from the University of Westminster has provided an opportunity to think with and through water and its composites, whereby contamination becomes agency.

19/06/2023