International news
RIBA President’s Medals Student Awards 2008 winners|
Updated RIBA Article 25 Humanitarian Information Pack|
Recession and recovery – essential advice for members|
Recession survival kit – beating the crunch|
Palladio 500|
Emerging Architecture Awards|
The Olympic Games – from Beijing to London|
RIBA International Conference – Passion versus functionality?|
Striking a balance|
Unsustainable ideas|
Wynne Leung and Francesco Matteo Belfiore (University of Greenwich) receive the Bronze Medal for best design project at Part 1 for ‘Invisible University Library’ from David Gloster (Director of Education) and Sunand Prasad (RIBA President)
The RIBA President’s Medals Student Awards promote excellence in the study of architecture, rewarding talent and encouraging architectural debate worldwide. The winners of the 2008 awards were announced in a ceremony at the RIBA on 3 December.
James Tait from the University of Strathclyde won the Silver Medal for his project ‘Time and Tide for Seaweed’, and Wynne Leung and Francesco Matteo Belfiore from the University of Greenwich won the Bronze Medal for their joint project ‘Invisible University Library’. Dominic Severs from the University of Westminster won the Dissertation Medal for his work ‘Rookeries and No-go Estates: St. Giles and Broadwater Farm’.
The main President’s Medals are: the Bronze Medal (awarded to a Part 1 design project), the Silver Medal (Part 2 design project) and the Dissertation Medal, which is awarded for the best exploration of different subjects, methodologies and presentations. A total of 111 schools of architecture offering RIBA-validated courses around the world were asked to nominate two of their best student design projects at Part 1 (first degree), two at Part 2 (second degree) and one dissertation. In addition 116 schools from all over the world were also invited to submit work to the competition.
A number of other awards were also presented at the ceremony. For more information, visit www.presidentsmedals.com|
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Are you looking into doing voluntary architectural work in the developing world? If so, you should log on to RIBANet to download an updated version of the Humanitarian Information Pack.
The intention of this document (initially set up by RIBA Education and currently developed by Article 25) is to engage both the built environment and humanitarian development communities on a professional level. Both professional and student RIBA members should refer to this resource for comprehensive advice concerning a career or voluntary placement within the disaster relief and development sector.
The RIBA has swung into action to help you stand the best possible chance of surviving the present economic downturn.
The institute, along with the Association of Consultant Architects, has launched a Recovery Task Force to help architects plan for recovery. An online ‘recession survival kit’ has also been made available, providing members with information, advice and strategies on matters including human resources and business development.
The Recovery Task Force, chaired by architect Barry Munday, will aim to reflect the views of a wide range of stakeholders, including smaller and larger practices, students and co-professionals. Its remit will range from a consideration of the global financial condition – including recent measures announced by the UK government to support the economy – to providing guidance for affected individuals.
Sunand Prasad, president of the RIBA, said the institute would do all it could to minimise the effect of the recession on its members and the wider built environment sector: ‘The RIBA recognises the challenges faced by the profession in these uncertain times. We will use our influence and experience to help ensure that the industry is ready to respond as we emerge from the recession.’
The Recovery Task Force will attempt to identify and promote a series of practical measures to help boost economic activity, minimise the social impact of the downturn and assist students and new graduates in the job market. The panel includes: John Assael (Assael), Alison Coutinho (Paul Davies + Partners), Dale Sinclair (Dyer), Nick Willson (Willson and Bell), Rob Smith (Davis Langdon) and Mary Wren (former CEO RIAS). Institute members’ suggestions are welcome.
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The recession survival kit, which contains helpful advice and lists of external organisations with particular expertise in business survival, can be found on www.architecture.com in the members-only area. Advice is given for all membership groups, and CPD seminars with particular reference to the credit crunch are highlighted.
The kit has been brought together from the many benefits and services offered by the RIBA and relevant external sources, to provide access to expert guidance and consultancy, practical business advice for the small and large practitioner and national and international market leads.
While the institute realises that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to solving the problems which the economy has brought, the RIBA community is doing all it can to minimise the effect of the recession on its members and the wider industry. The RIBA aims to use its influence and experience to help ensure that we are in a position to make the most of the conditions when the profession emerges from the current downturn.
We welcome feedback from members about the economic decline, and would urge you to visit the recession survival kit regularly, as this online facility will be updated with new services on an ongoing basis. To access it, visit the members-only area at www.architecture.com|
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To mark 500 years since the birth of Andrea Palladio (1508–1580) one of the most influential architects in history, the RIBA is collaborating in a number of exciting events, including a major exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, a dedicated web-hub exploring our collections, and a series of talks and workshops.
At the heart of the celebrations are the Palladio collections of the RIBA British Architectural Library, which include almost all of Palladio’s surviving drawings – an extraordinary collection that changed the face of British architecture.
For more information, visit www.architecture.com/palladio|
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The 10th Architectural Review Awards for Emerging Architecture has provided a surprising and fascinating snapshot of architecture’s emerging generation. An exhibition of the award-winning projects is now showing at the RIBA until 28 February.
The exhibition features an inspiring range of projects from around the world, including an enclosure for orang-utans in Australia, an outdoor bath in Germany and a four-star hotel in Spain. Alongside the exhibition are a series of talks by eight of the winning and commended architects.
For more information, visit www.architecture.com/emerging|
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Beijing
RIBA/UKTI held a seminar during China’s Olympic Games at the British Embassy, Beijing, on the theme Cities for Future Fulfilment. This addressed sustainable development using Dongtan as an example, set against the context of lessons learned in the UK and elsewhere.
Speakers from the RIBA, the Architectural Society of China, the ICE and Arup took part, and the keynote speech was given by Digby, Lord Jones of Birmingham, UK minister for trade & investment, who spoke very highly of British architecture and engineering expertise.
RIBA representatives also attended the UKTI’s networking reception, Be Part of It, with prime minister, Gordon Brown, secretary of state for culture, media and sport, Andy Burnham and Olympics minister, Tessa Jowell.
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RIBA International Conference
Report by Zoe Berman (RIBA student writer)
There was never going to be one single reaction, or one clear resolution, to the topic of Architecture and Identity, the theme of RIBA International Conference 2008 held in Barcelona, on 25-26 October. What I hadn’t predicted was that there should be such a split in opinion, into two camps of thought: those who believed that the identity of a design was defined by the architect (and that the concept of a scheme was the pursuit of an architectural passion) versus those who sought to design from the inside out (believing that identity should instead be a result of the consideration of place, people and functionality). Still, these variations in opinion had fuzzy boundaries and all in all we enjoyed a gathering of differing perspectives.
RIBA president Sunand Prasad’s opening talk, ‘The Politics of Architecture and Identity’, alluded to the possibility that the credit crunch (or as the French are calling it, the ‘Death of Capitalism’) and the ensuing decline in the global market would require a closer examination of our position on modern vernacular. In terms of identity and globalisation, Prasad spoke of ‘cultural dislocation’, and the anxiety felt that globalisation could lead to homogeneous, placeless design. But rather than criticise developing countries, he noted that we should ‘put our own house in order before being too critical of other countries’ aspirations’.
Alejandro Zaera Polo, of Foreign Office Architects, remarked that ‘globalisation expands experience… it will increase the level of diversification’, but for myself I struggled to see how the John Lewis department store in Leicester and the Meyden retail complex in Istanbul did much more for the identity of place than create a visual icon. Even the Carabanchel social housing scheme in Madrid seemed to focus primarily on facade. Is there more to ‘identity’ than merely form making? As Raphael Marks of Penoyre and Prasad observed in the question and answer session, ‘wrapped facades… (only) scratch the surface of the identity of place’.
Alison Brooks was clear that her practice seeks to pursue a passion for folding and a thinness of planes in design schemes, and that these are personal passions. In her presentation of the Scottish Parliament, Benedetta Tagliabue of Miralles Tagliabue was equally clear that many of the concepts behind the design (boat-like form, structure, the image of a leaf, the shaped facades) were architect-conceived.
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Is this a question of either/or? In other words, can a design be both visually exciting, pursue an architectural fantasy as well as be people-centred, functional and sustainable? Herman Hertzberger’s remark ‘architecture, in the end, is about people’ was met with resounding agreement, and the relationship between identity and sustainability was a strong undercurrent throughout the conference, and explored in detail by Ken Yeang, David Mackay and George Ferguson.
As a specialist in ecologically responsive architecture, Ken Yeang showed a series of projects that demonstrated how buildings can, in form and layout, be defined by their response to local climatic conditions. David Mackay of MBM Arquitectes, in a lucid and accessible talk, discussed the challenges faced in designing the Barcelona Olympics masterplan, and how a rigorous brief had produced a final scheme that was socially sustainable, had a lasting value for the city and was crucial to the city’s regeneration. In this sense, the city’s identity is both local and global: locally it is a city that works, that is enjoyed by its inhabitants and has an identity that is unique and specific. In turn, from the inside outwards, this appreciated locality gives it its global identity as a vibrant and multi-layered city, demonstrating that reputation and culture of place can come foremost from the heart of a site and identity will follow.
In contrast to Barcelona, Mackay raised the Beijing Olympics, and particularly the ‘Bird’s Nest’, as an example of the push-me-pull-me conflict of interest that arises from pursuing global identity. On the surface, Herzog and de Meuron’s design for the Beijing stadium is a world-class example of global branding, iconic and memorable. But underneath this visual bubble is a design that is socially and environmentally deeply unsustainable.
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There was a resounding backlash against climatically unsustainable design, passionately expressed by Alison Brooks: ‘I feel ethically shocked by every glass tower built in a hot country.” George Ferguson, of Acanthus Ferguson Mann Architects and former president of the RIBA, echoed this sentiment in his talk Sustainable Architecture – does it have its own identity? ‘Architecture is out of control; glass towers, shopping malls, buildings that are fundamentally unsustainable. We must be unforgiving about glass towers in tropical climates.’ Vehemently rounding on the caricature of sustainability, the surface ‘green wash’, Ferguson called on all of us to not tolerate the token green roof or the singular wind-turbine, worn on a building like an environmentally conscious badge, and be ruthlessly focused in generating a culture where all buildings must at the very core be sustainable and not merely present a thin veil of sustainability.
The conference never saw a deep-level of debate between speakers and delegates in the plenary sessions, perhaps because talks were given over the course of two half days, a more succinct arrangement than last year’s all-day conference in Paris but it saw less opportunity for ideas to be thrashed out in the lecture theatre. Considering the theme of the conference it seemed surprising that no one from not-for-profit organisations had been invited – surely the most raw and gritty example of working closely with identity would be a live project where there is extensive public consultation and participation?
With thanks to the Foster + Partners bursary scheme and Tony Chapman and John-Paul Nunes of RIBA.
For more information on the RIBA International Conference 2009, visit
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