Contributor’s Corner: Goldsmiths – from the inside

Blog written by Boidus Contributor – Sam Hill

You may – depending upon your background – know a little or a lot about Goldsmiths College. Chances are you’ve heard of the contentious Fine Art course (now based in Will Alsop’s ‘squiggle’) that spawned Damien Hirst, Marcus Harvey and most of the other YBA’s in the nineties. You might also know about the sterling BA Design course, which is where I graduated in 2008.

Of course, if you are interested in the BA or MA courses on offer at Goldsmiths, all the information you would ever need to know about the college is online but I’ll try and deliver an impassioned, recent-graduates perspective.

Goldsmiths College is not perfect, but it is pretty bloody brilliant. Deep in the grubby arse of south-east London (between Deptford, Lewisham and Peckham), it’s exactly the right breeding ground for experimentation, invention, fusion and raw, frontier culture. That’s not to say that the place is intimidating. Honestly, it’s not. It was the general un-stuffiness that led me (and plenty of my contemporaries) to choose the BA course over many of London’s other successful design institutions.

Goldsmiths Studio

Photo from Sam Hill

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Feature Profile: A10 Studio

Re.evolution Lounge+Bar by A10 Studio

Cabo San Lucas: Town of Two Halves

In the center of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, the Re.evolution lounge+bar is a project that you’d most probably see in Miami or LA than in a touristy Mexican beach resort. It provides a breath of fresh air to the city nightlife, and has also unintentionally triggered a micro urban renewal in the neighbourhood.

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Architecture Naturally: Student Photography Competition

This week I recieved the latest brief for the ADP Architects Student Photography Competition 2009/2010. You can enter now, and find out more below.

My entry for last year. Festival in Trafalgar Square. Image by Robert Pike

The ADP website states:

Last year, ADP launched its first national student photography competition – Bricks and Mortals. Such was the success of the event, that we have decided to run the competition again this year, with a fresh new theme and brief: Architecture Naturally.

Architecture Naturally is open to students over the age of 16 studying photography or architecture, or related design courses. The focus for this year’s competition is on the important relationship between architecture, and the natural world.

Winners and selected entrants will have the chance to have their work exhibited at two private exhibitions. Prints on display at these events will also be up for auction, to raise funds for Architecture Sans Frontieres-UK.

ADP gratefully acknowledges the support of Adobe, Callprint and DIgital Photographer as this year’s competition sponsors.

(Source: http://www.adp-architects.co.uk/index.php Accessed website December 2009)

Download the brief here

London Festival of Architecture 2010: Design Your Own Festival

The Welcoming City

19th June-4th July 2010

Above: The Fresh Flower Pavilion from LFA08. Image by Robert Pike

The London Festival of Architecture takes place from 19 June to 4 July 2010 and will be a city-wide celebration of architecture in the capital. As London gears up for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games LFA2010 will look at ways that planners, architects and local communities play their part in the development of ‘The Welcoming City (LFA, 2010)’. The 2008 Festival was a tremendous succcess with events throughout London that provided interest for all. It attracted 250,000 visitors to some 800 events. If you took part or visited the many events you will agree that it was quite a spectacle. Now LFA in readiness for 2010 wants your ideas for events and ideas. If you visit the official site you can now create a personal profile, as Boidus has done, so that you can keep up to date with events. You can also add your own events to the schedule. So get you thinking caps on and contribute to this fantastic festival now!

LFA2010 Official website

General Enquiries: info@lfa2010.org

Above: Jelly St Pauls from the LFA2008 Design a Jelly Mould competition.

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Breaking News: Boiler Scrappage Scheme & Feed-in Tariffs

The Chancellor Alistair Darling in his Pre-Budget Report (PBS) has announced a proposal to help 125,000 homes to replace inefficient boilers in a new ’scrappage’ scheme. This supports the need for the existing housing stock in the UK to become more energy efficient.

He also announced:

• £160m investment in low-carbon and renewable projects
• Homeswith wind turbines and micro generation measures that pay back to the national grid will benefit from a £900 tax free feed in tariff.
• £200m extra investment for Warm Front insulation scheme, helping 65,000 households
• Electric cars to be exempt from company car tax for five years

(Source: Pre Budget Report deliver by Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, 9/12/09. As broadcast on BBC Five Live)

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Ghost Forest @ Trafalgar Square – exhibition review

“What can be imagined, can be achieved.”

Photography by Mark Ellery

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Ghost Forest is an original and ambitious art installation highlighting the connections between deforestation and climate change. It will feature 10 real rainforest tree stumps, most with their buttress roots still attached, positioned on Trafalgar Square. Nelson’s Column stands at 169 feet (over 50 metres), the approximate height these trees would have been in the wild.

Trafalgar Square events

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Click here for some more images by “davegrave@” on flickr

Click here for the BBC News feature

Click here for the Telegraph Trees video

Click here for some amazing ghostly images by Londonist by DeanN

Click here for more Flickr images by chrisjohnbeckett

Click here for some wise words by the Financial Times rainforest review

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The Ghost Forest display was on between the 16th and 22nd of November and has now ended

RIBA Announces Winners of Presidents Medal 2009

At a ceremony at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), this year’s top students of Architecture have been awarded with the Presidents Medal. Here are the winners:

Part2.

Silver Medal.

Nicholas Szczepaniak.

A Defensive Architecture.

University of Westminster

Above: A Defensive Architecture by Nicholas Szczepaniak. University of Westminster

More images here

Westminster Summer Exhibition Review here

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Christo Meyer: Nominee for Presidents Medal Dissertation Prize

It is my great pleasure to introduce Christo Meyer as one of this years nominees of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Presidents Medal dissertation prize. Having emerged from the same dissertation group led by Dr Norman Bayldon at London South Bank University, I can say that Christo  proved to be a student with a great passion for his subject. This is represented by the final result of his dissertation. I, along with my Boidus colleagues, would like to wish Christo our warmest congratulations on his nomination.

[...N1-N9-N10...] The Karoo Displaced

The Karoo Displaced. Investigates the phenomenological aspect of the given route. A video produced to accompany the dissertation. Filmed & produced by Christo Meyer.  (Source: Youtube, 2009)

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Seminar: BRE’s Low Carbon Building Programme Phase 2

As reported by Della Pearlman

FUNDING

The Low Carbon Building Programme (LCBP)  is divided into 2 phases:

• LCBP-1 is for householder, (providing grants of up to £2500) and 
• LCBP-2 is for Schools, Churches, community and other not-for-prfit organizations, providing grants of up to 50% to a maximum of £200,000.

An extra £45 million was announced in the budget of 2009, with LCBP-2 receiving an additional £35 million of funding.  There will be a £9 million pot for solar PV but other technologies have no limits applied to them. Applications are being accepted until the end of March 2010 for electrical and heat microgeneration, and until March 2011 for thermal energy.

Crossway by Richard Hawkes Architects. Photography by Robert Pike

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Boidus: Bookshop

Welcome to a new corner of Boidus – the bookshop!

This is a place where the Boidus community can advertise their second hand books for sale, or, place an advert looking for a book (that is maybe out of print or hard to find at a reasonable price).  Feel free to post links to other online bookshops, arranage book swaps or advertise second hand jumble sales, bric-a-brac sales or post links to good design/architecture bookshops that you have found and want to share with others.

To start us off here is a link to the Archidose micro bookshop