Westminster University – Summer Exhibition 2009 Review – 19.06.09

My second summer exhibition visit was to Westminster University. Situated on a busy leafy street the building is simple and white, I like it. The studios have an impressive mezzanine gallery arrangement that I can imagine helps build a great community and working atmosphere. But something is different than the MET building I visited the night before. There is a distinct lack of mess! I don’t mean the walls, which I presume were recently painted white. The building, the floors, the spaces seem cleaner, crisper, fresher. This can be a good thing, but I feel for Westminster it is a bad thing. Most of the Design Studios (DS) that I look at feel final and complete. Models are mostly laser cut, nearly every drawing is done using a computer and there is a distinct lack of hand drawn sketches, development of projects or hand built models. Even simple models are precision engineered using a laser cutter; this doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing, but because nearly every image/drawing/model is computer generated the whole aura is of a detachment from people.

Each studio group had an easily defined space, with an identical A4 cover sheet explaining who the students were, who the tutors were, the general idea of the brief and a brief introduction. It really helped understand the drawings I was looking at and it was something that was lacking (or difficult to understand) at the MET.

For me the most outstanding groups were the following:
(click here for open Westminster studio groups)

DS02 (BA/BSc Arch) – Sustainable Workplace, Vauxhall

DS03 (BA/BSc Arch) – Design Language and Sculpture

DS08 (BA/BSc Arch) – Paper Streets

DS12 (MA Arch) – Bow Bells Soundscape by Amy Butt, Chris Boyle and Alison Redmond

Design Group 02 (Sustainable workplace, Vauxhall) had a lot of very nice hand made and laser cut models integrated well with 3D computer models. The use of black in the drawings was very limited and this helped to create a series of images and drawings that were not overbearing or egotistical. The drawings were down to earth and real: they were believable.

Design group 03 (Design Language and Sculpture), had one piece of work in particular that caught my eye. A simple, bold, black and white sectional drawing by Natasa Christou conveyed a maturity of drawing and a concise and clear method: she clearly knew what she was trying to design. The project was an “Art Centre for works by Picasso, in Chicago”. Natasa’s other 3D images also showed a maturity and refinement that I would not normally expect from a degree student: she had a well chosen colour palette of muted browns.

Other work in the group was executed to a high standard with some very good physical models. Shuahra Rahman had a very nice simply bound portfolio of finely crafted drawings. Her model was extremely impressive and intricately crafted using a laser cutter and hand made components.

Design Studio 08 (Paper Streets), run by Ben Stringer and Peter Barber had some extremely good drawings by BA/BSc Student Monsur Miah, I might even go so far as to say they were better than some students studying for their Masters! At a glance some of the work by the Masters students did not seem as technologically resolved as the Degree students. First impressions could indicate that Degree students had a more realistic approach and better understanding of materials in their buildings.

Design Studio 12 ([Re]adjusted territories: Cyprus double take[s]), run by tutors Jeanne Sillett, Andy Garton, and Mark Rintoul seemed a little obsessed with overly complex grammar and complex language, the use of (brackets) was at first interesting, and then (slightly) irritating! To me “vertical adjacencies… correlation between activity above and below the pool slab” or “choreographed surveys” are words that have been twisted into overly complex sentences; surely a simpler language would help explain the projects? Aren’t students always told to make their diagrams and drawings easy to understand at a glance? So surely adding difficult text is not helping?

Slightly annoying text aside the drawings were finely crafted and intricate, the “(re)adjusted river: municipal waterscapes” by Owen Lambert had an extremely good sectional drawing. “Bow Bells soundscape” by Amy Butt, Chris Boyle and Alison Redmond had a really good series of hand sketched diagrams and simple colours to help the readers understand the project at a glance – it was a simple architecture with no over the top language or ornament.

Overall, DS12 had some very good models and passionately executed, precise drawings that were well framed.

Design Studio 14 consisted of beautiful images of some sort of “(smell?) storage facility”, but I struggled to see a building or anything that resembled a building in the pictures. The display was very “Archigramesque” but lacked functional or technological explanation. Jonathan Walker had produced some very good images using a lot of black – but not so much that it was over the top as were some others. The drawings were clearly done with care and love. An “Artists Cabin” felt overly complex and over engineered – but the drawings were nonetheless very good quality.

To conclude I would say that Westminster University has some extremely talented students, producing impressive and sometimes breath-taking images. It could be argued that sometimes a more humanistic approach should be taken during the design process and people should be considered more, but this is the diversity of architecture: each student is free to create their own style and technique.

In my opinion, the most outstanding students were:

Natasa Christou – Art Centre,

Amy Butt – Bow Bells,

Chris Boyle – Bow Bells,

Alison Redmond – Bow Bells,

Karen Tai – Film and architecture motion picture,

Shuahra Rahman – Good portfolio and model.

Follow-up links:

Design Studio 15

Facebook gallery of the exhibition