WANTED: music guru/DJ/ turntable maestro

MA&DE is looking for DJs for the Celebration Week party next Thursday evening in the School of Architecture - short notice, but WE NEED YOU NOW!

You could play as much or little as you want via mp3 or any other format as long as it's danceable, so you'll definitely have time to enjoy the night as well. Oh, and of course there are some free drinks for the DJs... so if you're interested, please get in touch!

made.in.spring@gmail.com

Thanks and official celebration invite will follow soon... as soon as the music is confirmed!

MA&DE PUBLIC - seminar 2

"The Interior as a Background for Life".
Florian Beigel : La Congiunta House for Sculptures.
Tuesday, the 19th of February.
Studio North (E105, on the first floor)
6:30pm. (not 6:00 pm as printed on the posters!)

This week Florian Beigel will discuss a building project called 'La Congiunta House for Sculptures' in Giornico, Switzerland designed by Peter Märkli.

The description will focus on the architect's role as Baukunstler (building artist). In ancient architecture, building art was considered the highest form of art. The proposition of the talk is that we need architects today who base their work on the idea of a continuity of architectural knowledge. La Congiunta is a marriage of art and architecture. It is a well-tempered house for the works of the Swiss sculptor Hans Josephsohn, a close friend and mentor of Peter Märkli.

After his introduction Florian Beigel will enter into a public dialogue with John Glew and Raphael Pennekamp. (Martina Geccelli won't be able to attend this week). A number of students made contributions to last week's discussion, which we would very much like to encourage this week as well!

If you missed last weeks session or want to refresh your memory, please see below for a review written by Anna Page (Unit 1):

The first in a series of 'ASD Public Seminars' conceived by Raphael Pennekamp to encourage open academic exchange in the department was held on Tuesday 12th February. The contemporary photographer Martina Gecceli was the first of four guests to present a selection of her work to prompt the discussion. Gecceli's selection of six photographs included a streetscape in New York, a post 9/11 interior in the world trade centre, objects on a table in her studio, a row of books with the spines concealed. In each instance, the artist was concerned with describing the spaces 'simply as they are', quite aside from any personal or political readings. Both interior or exterior, composed or found themes, were examined using similar questions: what are the provisional and temporary objects? How do the objects relate to one another in space? Where is the foreground? Where is the centre line? The following debate that arose between ASD students, guest architects Professor Florian Beigal, John Glew and chair Raphael Pennekamp centered on what was useful about these ideas for architects. The possibility of creating monumentality for objects that are physically light and ideas about changing scale using Gecceli's way of looking at the world were discussed. Students also questioned whether it is possible or even desirable to separate objects in space from their political or personal context. This first public seminar provided the beginnings of a much needed open forum for academic dialogue in the department. Next week's seminar on Tuesday 19th February will be prompted by Professor Florian Beigel's presentation on Peter Markli's La Congiunta .

MA&DE PUBLIC - seminar 1

"The Interior as a Background for Life"
Martina Geccelli: Brief visits - 6 Photographs.
Tuesday, the 12th of February
Studio North (E105, on the first floor)
6pm

Martina Geccelli: Trained as an architect and sculptor, Martina Geccelli is working with photography in connection with architectural and sculptural conditions. Her work focuses on external and internal spatial aspects. Space is defined by its limitations, the physical outlines and that in between.Sometimes a found setting is treated like a Still Life: the camera concentrates on details of the room, pointing towards specific aspects. People are placing things, useful or decorative, in their everyday routine. Traces of that routine are left like markings.

"I look at things as if for the first time, in order to explore so far unnoticed aspects."

MA&DE proudly presents...

...the MA&DE public debate series.

On three consecutive Tuesdays and, erhm, one Monday, Martina Geccelli, Florian Beigel, John Glew and Raphael Pennekamp will hold public seminars on "The interior as background for life". This Tuesday Martina Geccelli will present her work to start off the discussion, to which all are invited to contribute. We hope this format will promote a more open exchange of ideas between students, artists, tutors and visitors.

Do come and contribute!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

... and welcome back. We’re not going to talk about diets or fitness or any of that tripe. In fact, maybe we should just talk about tripe. Apparently, it's "delicious in a sandwich or just as part of your calorie controlled offal based diet". Hmmm.

Anyway, back to more architectural affairs and MA&DE - we've got more events, more ideas and marvellous things coming up for you in 2008. We'll be telling you what's up next in Spring House a jiffy...

Alex de Rijke lecture

Timber is the new concrete
Thursday 10th January

A critique of architecture practice today is that it is mostly driven by formal preoccupations, the endless quest for new form providing even ambitious architects with blinkers during the conceptual design process. A willful ignorance of the sustainable industrial revolution now underway in northern Europe is coupled with the attitude that recycling, renewable energy, low CO2 etc is generally considered (by the ‘avant-garde’) to be the site of duty, not dynamic design. Yet scientists, environmentalists and even politicians, the press and hence public know energy, waste management and ozone control to be the inevitable future…

De Rijke’s abbreviated synopsis of technology as the key driver of architecture is as follows:

the 17 and 18C was the era of brick,
the 19C was the era of the steel frame,
the 20C was the era of concrete,
as global energy crisis develops and CO2 emissions become legal issues:
the 21C will become the era of renewable timber.

dRMM aim to produce useful architecture that is a expression (and critique of) social and cultural production, using industrialised materials and processes. Their direct ‘Off the Shelf’ approach to (lateral) design has been systematically researched, taught and exhibited at the Architecture Association, London, and applied in practice since 1995 as dRMM London. The practice’s projects have been published widely and have received many awards for innovation and
achievement in architecture.

Project material research has recently focused on engineered timber and ETFE, which dRMM regard as the most interesting sustainable high-performance materials of the future. dRMM is a leader of the international field in the architectural exploitation of these materials, and is exploring the correlation between concept, context, and construction. Particular preoccupations of the practice lie in structural timber systems, the possibility of all-timber buildings, and economy of means.

CHRISTMAS SOCIAL @ BarCosa

This Thursday the 13th of December, MA&DE invite you and your friends to join us in celebrating the end of term at BarCosa.

There will be live music, and of course, the giving of prestigious snowflake award for the best decoration that you have 'MA&DE' for the Christmas tree. So, after Graham Haworth's lecture, make your way down the road and join your fellow students in saying goodbye to the Autumn term, and hello to the Christmas holidays!

A fun little competition

As you may have noticed, we at MA&DE decided to bring a bit of festive fun into your stressful lives at uni, and have put up a pretty Christmas Tree opposite the yellow board. The uni seems to have brought one in too - decorated in a vulgar array of gold and purple - we we know you can do better...

So, all you "creatives" get creative... get your scalpels and glues and papers and cards (for it 'tis the season to be jolly) and make something lovely. There'll be a fun prize for the most delightful, most ephemeral, most Nordic paper snowflake. So be sure to put your name on your decoration somewhere.

Announcements and prize-giving on Thursday at the social. Details coming soon... !

Coming soon...

... we have an especially tasty 'freshly MA&DE' lecture taking place at Spring House, which will be followed by the Christmas social.

Graham Haworth lecture

The Architecture of Engagement - Working in the Margins
Thursday, 13 December, 6.30pm

The architect’s role in the development of the sustainable city is often ambiguous. Traditional concerns of architectural style, taste and composition pre-occupy most good architects. The resulting designs whilst visually provocative, are often problematic, unable to survive the closer scrutiny of wider socio-economic, environmental and cultural imperatives.

Equally, a simple commitment to social well-being through technology, is prescribed by orthodox modernism, avoids those situations where architecture has to engage with less precise areas of reality. Architecture, as taught and published often deals only with abstract certainties and this ‘retreat’ is becoming increasingly unsustainable. The potential benefit of good architecture is denied to the wider population, and the product that we all get excited about in the media, actually probably influences less than 5% of all global construction leaving the question of who is responsible for the remaining 95% unanswered.

To be truly sustainable, architecture should be able to meet more objectives, satisfy more needs, be more appropriate, and achieve more relevance. If it is to contribute to meaningful improvements in the urban environment it must engage with the ‘junk’ of everyday reality and establish key values; values that are often generated as much by economics, social goals and politics as they are by design.