AIA UK SUMMER GALA 2015

The annual Summer Gala was a traditional British barbecue this year. Despite the misty weather, everyone enjoyed the fresh air and delicious food at the Rotunda Bar & Restaurant at King's Place. It was an evening of networking, socialising and thanking our chapter sponsors, especially Herman Miller whom sponsored the event. As always, the highlight of the evening was the prize draw by Herman Miller with Lorraine King winning the chair. It was great to see so many old and new faces at the gala. 

To view more photos of the event, click here.

Author: Brianne Hamilton

2015 AIA EUROPE HONORS & AWARDS CALL FOR ENTRIES

AIA UK’s sister chapter, AIA Continental Europe – the 2nd International Chapter – is launching an AIA Honors and Awards programme with submissions due by 31 July 2015. 

AIA UK Architects and International Associates who are not members of AIA Continental Europe are eligible to participate if their projects are located within the Chapter’s assigned territory.  

Although AIA Continental Europe often self-styles itself as “AIA Europe,” its assigned territory is both wider ranged and more limited.  It includes the following countries not all of which are in Europe, but is exclusive of the UK:

Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldavia, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine.

Unlike our own Design Awards, CE’s programme is open only to AIA members and has defined categories –

• Architectural
• Interior
• Urban and Environmental Design
• Unbuilt
• “Other” Projects.

The CE programme is also designed to recognise leadership and achievements by individuals or organisations that benefit the profession.

Please click on the links below for further information:

Submission Guide

List of Jury

We hope that many of the AIA UK’s members who fit the criteria will consider submissions.  

Good luck to you all!

BUILDING TOUR AT THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF THE ARTS - MICHAEL LISCHER

On Thursday evening, May 7th, chapter members and guests toured a building familiar with many of our members.  The Royal Society of Art's building on John Adams Street in London was host to many AIA UK events in the 1990s.  

Founded in 1754, the RSA was the first of many learned societies to emerge from the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century and counted luminaries like Benjamin Franklin as members.  Realizing they needed a purpose built headquarters, the RSA commissioned the top "starchitect" of the day, John Adams to design their new building in 1774.  Several adjacent houses and a tavern were added to the property over the ensuing years and by the current century, the facility was in need of work.  Matthew Lloyd Architects was appointed in 2010 to repair, modernize and create a unified design for the facility while enhancing the listed structures.  

Alex Sherratt, partner at Matthew Lloyd, and Pete Bass, Insight Manager at the RSA, showed off their "new" facility on a fascinating tour of the building.  A huge amount of work was undertaken and the results are stunning!  A key element of the work was the conversion of the old auditorium into a more useful multi-purpose space, referred to as the Great Room. Complete with its original paintings by James Barry and sympathetic upgrades with modern lighting and IT services, the Great Room has been restored to its original configuration as envisioned by Adams with dramatic results. Through the strategic use of colour and common floor materials, Matthew Lloyd visually unified the disparate spaces on the ground floor, including the Benjamin Franklin room.

Clearly this wonderful renovation was a labour of love for the RSA and Matthew Lloyd Architects and this is reflected in the results!  

A special thanks go to Alex and Pete for taking the time to show us around their unique and very special building!

Benjamin Franklin Room

Tour Guides Pete Bass and Alex Sherratt 

Tour visits the Great Room

New Staircase

Brick Vaults of the Basement

AIA UK 2015 EXCELLENCE IN DESIGN AWARDS - FREDERICK GRIER

The 21st Annual AIA UK Excellence in Design Awards was held on Tuesday, 28th April, at the Magazine Restaurant in the Zaha Hadid designed Serpentine Sackler Gallery. During the champagne and cocktail reception prior to the awards ceremony, over 120 distinguished guests joined the chapter in recognizing the terrific efforts and astonishing talent on display throughout the restaurant. 

This year’s jury was headed by Fred Manson, Associate Director of Heatherwick Studio, and included a versatile mix of members including Brett Steele, Director of AA School of Architecture and Owen Pritchard, Technical Editor of Architects’ Journal. Mr Manson, along with members of the jury including Alison Brooks, Founding Director of Alison Brooks Architects, conferred certificates and accolades upon well-known architects, emerging architects and students alike.

This year, for the first time ever, AIA UK Design Awards opened a category for young architects, with design directors under 40 years-of-age, to encourage and reward work by a new generation of architects. The jury awarded this prize to The Lee Centre by Feilden Fowles for its outstanding use of materials and interior spaces. Edmund Fowles and Fergus Feilden enthusiastically accepted the certificate and honour bestowed from the jury.

“The enjoyable task of judging the AIA UK Awards demonstrated the range of excellent work from the familiar to the unknown in Britain today. The jury judged the digital entries which favoured projects with clear, strong forms. Since the selection was made on the basis of images, perhaps the award should be given equally to the photographers.” 

– Fred Manson, head juror

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Young Architect Award

Photography: © Henrietta Williams

Feilden Fowles Architects – The Lee Centre, Ralph Allen School, Bath, UK (completed 2013)

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In parallel with the Professional and Young Architect awards, the chapter also recognizes future talent through the Noel Hill Student Travel Award. With the generous support of Laufen, this program awarded two students from the Mackintosh School of Architecture at The Glasgow School of Art with £1000 to support their trip to Cambodia to assist with the design and construction of a new community centre in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. Ryan McGaffney and Jennifer Taggart will spend July and August with the humanitarian design organisation Orkidstudio in Cambodia, after completing a series of design workshops to finalize their design. These two students will construct the centre using local materials with assistance from the organisation, as together they educate and empower the local men and women with the tools to build, maintain and potentially construct additional structures as the community’s needs continue to grow.  

Noel Hill Travel Award

Ryan McGaffney and Jennifer Taggart

The Mackintosh School of Architecture at The Glasgow School of Art

Previous design by the students using temporary materials, designed and built in two weeks. The jury selected two outstanding designs for Commendation from the impressive bevy of professional submissions received this year, including projects from some of the top firms in the country. 

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Professional Commendation

Seth Stein Architects – Equestrian Centre, Victoria, Australia (completed 2014)

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Professional Commendation

Duggan Morris Architects – Alfriston Swimming Pool, Buckinghamshire, UK (completed 2014)

Photography: © Jack Hobhouse

In addition to the Commendations, the jury selected one standout project that best exemplified excellence in design from this year’s entries. David Chipperfield Architects’ Office building Moganshan Road combines effortless details and profound elegance with simple yet highly comfortable office space amongst the rapidity of development in China. This project shows a refinement of design well worthy of the highest accolade.

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Professional Winner

David Chipperfield Architects – Office building Moganshan Road, Hangzhou, China (completed 2013)

Photography: © Simon Menges

“We are happy and honoured to receive the AIA UK Excellence in Design Award for our project in Hangzhou. We would like to thank our client ‘Hangzhou Fanes Baoyuan Real Estate’ for the great collaboration and support in realizing a building with generous office spaces and in high quality materials.”

– David Chipperfield Architects

AIA UK LEGAL SEMINAR

Legal Lecture IV - Novation of Architects to Contractors

13 May 2015

An increasing number of projects are design-build with the contractor being responsible for preparing the design and managing the design team.  This often means the architect starts working for the client, then finds him or herself novated to and working for the contractor. The process of novation is full of pitfalls for the unwary architect!

Novation was the topic for the fourth in the AIA UK's series of legal seminars.  Presented by solicitors from Beale and Company, this event took place at Herman Miller's London showroom on April 15th. Solicitors Andrew Croft and Ben Mullard presented a lively and informative discussion about novation to an enthusiastic audience of chapter members and guests.

Andrew and Ben made a distinction between assignment and novation, noting that novation is more fundamental and requires careful consideration and understanding of the responsibilities and liabilities.  It gets more complex as there are actually two types of novation that can be utilized.  

These are switch and ab initio. The terms and conditions of the novation agreement must be fully understood by the architect in order to gage the risk one is assuming.  Andrew and Ben pointed out, however, the novation agreement is the architect's opportunity to renegotiate the design contract with the contractor and make changes, if desired!

The discussion was fascinating and generated a number of questions from the audience. The increasing use of novation by clients makes this an important subject for architects. Clearly, novation of design consultants is a "hot topic" and may be looked at in greater detail at a future legal discussion.

Thanks go to Beale & Company's Andrew Croft and Ben Mullard for their presentations. And, to Shazia Sheikh at Herman Miller for her hospitality in hosting us! Michael Lischer FAIA

Author: Michael Lischer

FAÇADE LECTURE SERIES

The first two lectures in the Façade Series were on terracotta (Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Nov 2013) and wood (Schindler Facades, Apr 2014). The latest two lectures - continuing the emphasis on different materials - have been on tensile membrane and glass structures.

All four lectures in the series have been generously hosted by our Sponsor Herman Miller at its Aldwych showrooms

The AIA UK Chapter would like to promote more technical lectures following on from the Façade series.  We would be interested in hearing your ideas on possible subjects.  

Tensile Fabric Architecture – 01 Dec 2014

The December Façade Series lecture stretched the concept of “façade” by including tensile fabric being used for what might more accurately be described as a building “roof” – a roof in the case of the Serpentine Sackler Gallery that has been literally stretched to become the primary building envelope.

The lecture came in two parts, with senior representatives of both Zaha Hadid Architects and Architen Landrell Associates - the specialist tensile structure designer and fabricator – discussing how their technical and creative collaboration brought about this unique building.

Jason Smith, Architen Landrell’s American Engineer and Business Development Manager, led off with an explanation of the elemental shapes of tensile structures and how these shapes could be transformed into architecture.   He then demonstrated various different building fabrics, emphasizing their benefits and practicalities.  The general introduction was followed by a detailed analysis of the fabrication and installation process of the Sackler Gallery itself.

Torsten Broeder, Zaha Hadid Architect’s Lead Architect, talked about the original design concepts of the Gallery – including different layouts and challenges - and his own experience working on this project.

As a follow up on the lecture, the Serpentine Sacklery Gallery hosted this year’s AIA Design Awards Gala on Tuesday, 28th April.

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Glass as a Building Material – 10 Mar 2015

The latest lecture in the Façade Series - presented by Ralf Scheurer, Architect and International Sales Engineer for Sedak GmbH & Co (part of the Seele Group of Companies, Gersthofen, Germany) - was subtitled “New Developments in Processing. “ After a general overview of the historic development and capabilities of building glass, Ralf concentrated on how Sedak’s commitment to advancing glass technology has been pushing these capabilities to their limits.

Along the way, we learned about the critical glass technical issues and what the different processes – annealing, heat strengthening, tempering, etc.  - were able to achieve in terms of design issues such as bending, printing, coating, cutting, drilling, layering and dimensioning.

Laminated and insulated glass were also explained, as well as the all-important methods of testing, quality control and transportation to the sites.

Through Sedak’s extensive, international project portfolio, Ralf was able to illustrate how the different glass processes have led to innovative design applications – from full glass structures, stairs, balustrades and roofs to more unusual art installations, movie screens and undersea viewing galleries.  Many of the projects used to illustrate the design potential of glass can be found in London, including four of the examples below.

In particular, Sedak’s glass tempering furnace and can now process the highest quality glass in sizes up to 3.2m x 15m.  The effects of the larger sizes on visual impact were graphically shown with a comparison of the acclaimed 2006 Apple Glass Cube with an even more transparent 2011 version.

Author: Lorraine King