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Roca’s global channel www.rocagallery.com which shares articles on news, trends, best practice will be broadcasting new series of interviews with renowned professionals though IG live.
They will interview Fernanda Marques, architect from Brazil, Emmanuela Fratini, architect and designer based in New York, Isabel Pintado, architect based in Dubai, and Luciano Kruk architect from Buenos Aires.
Watch the talks on their instagram account here.
Herman Miller share their top 5 tips on how to help your teams stay productive and collaborative:
1. Understand the challenges of helping everyone stay connected and engaged.
2. Use web meetings sparingly and rely on tools that keep you connected throughout the day.
3. Make sure important conversations and decisions include remote team members.
4. Get creative with ideas for socialising digitally.
5. Regularly check in with team members and establish outcome-driven performance metrics.
To read the full article on Herman Miller’s website, please click here.
Photo Credit – Hopkins Architects
A growing number of UK architects are joining the front line fight against coronavirus by using their design expertise and technology to address the safety of health workers. It would be impossible at this fast-moving stage to keep track of all the architectural firms involved, but – just as a start – the work of a few of the early players has been brought to AIA UK Chapter’s attention by our membership.
If your firm is working on something particularly innovative, please let newsletter@aiauk.org know and your efforts can be added to the projects below before this Blog morphs into the AIA UK Newsletter later in the year.
HTA Design is being joined by 20 architectural practices – including HOK, Hopkins Architects, PLP and Perkins & Will – to make protective masks at the rate of 50 a week, and are publishing their design (see HERE).
As well has donating office fruit/food delivers to NHS hospitals, Hopkins Architects is using its model shop to print PPE masks and has provided a video of the production HERE.
Perkins & Will has multiple offices around the world and they are also adding to the story. Of particular interest is a design for a ‘Do It Yourself’ face mask from Schmidt Hammer Larsen (P&W in Denmark).
Foster + Partners is making general-purpose visors – suitable for cleaning and re-use - for mass production at a rate of 1,000 visors a day. It is sharing the design to encourage investigation into the ‘potential of digital and laser cutting machines as an alternative to 3D printing technology’ (see HERE).
As part of 3D Crowd UK, a community of over 5,000 3D printer owners who have come together to make face masks, model makers from Make Architects are producing 100 headbands a day from home.
KPF are working with 3D Crowd UK to make visor frames and one can download the design from their press release HERE.
KPF face shield frames. Photo Credit – KPF News.
Hugo – the R&D group of Corgan – is looking at the longer term response to a pandemic by promoting enhanced hygiene. It has entered a design competition hosted by Bompas and Parr and the British Red Cross to re-imagine the hand sanitizer pump. The Hugo/Corgan solution is called Pera and is planned to change behaviour at low cost (see how it works HERE).
Corgan competition submittal. Photo Credit - ©Corgan.
While the nation rightly applauds the efforts of its carers, health workers and others directly tasked with supporting those affected by the coronavirus pandemic, architects are also earning respect and gratitude for playing their part on the frontline.
Gregory Fonseca AIA, BDP Director and AIA UK Board Director, has highlighted the role BDP Architects and Engineers has played in the unprecedented challenge of converting the 115,000m2 ExCel Conference Centre at London’s Docklands into a temporary 4,000-bed field hospital for Covid-19 patients.
While there will be other coronavirus architectural success stories along the way, it is unlikely that any will capture the imagination as has the first Nightingale hospital. Working under the main contractor CFES, BDP collaborated with clinicians, consultants, contractors, the ExCel Facilities Management Team and the British Army to complete the first 500 beds in just 9 days.
According to BDP, ‘it is the scale, timeframe and purpose of this emergency facility that distinguishes it from any previous healthcare project’. Watch the first 9 days of fit out curtesy of the BBC HERE.
Leading the design and engineering efforts, BDP Architect Director Paul Johnson and BDP Healthcare Director James Hepburn called on their experience of designing large-scale healthcare facilities and intensive care units in super-speciality tertiary hospitals.
The key to Nightingale’s rapid progress ‘has been its clear concept and rigorous approach to procurement and construction’ requiring a team approach ‘to make rapid decisions so design and construction could take place in parallel’. All in all, it has been, ‘a monumental team effort which has been intense and exhausting’.
‘With the building structure in place, systems used to construct exhibition stands were used to form bed-heads and service corridors. The existing electrical system was expanded and a large-scale new gas system for providing patients with oxygen was installed’.
The Nightingale Hospital is the first of several crisis centres planned around the UK, and BDP has published the NHS Nightingale instruction manual which clearly displays the fit-out strategies and processes used at ExCel.
Follow the link HERE to BDP’s instruction manual. When it is updated, you will have access to the latest version.
Working on the project has not been without risk. According to Building Magazine, 9 Apr 2020, James Hepburn – who is a building services engineer - has been recuperating after a ‘fairly mild’ case of suspected Covid 19. The AIA UK Chapter can only wish him the best of future health.
The Nightingale exemplifies the role architects can play in crisis management. UK Chapter members are encouraged to send in their own pandemic retaliation contributions to add to this legacy via the new address newsletter@aia.org. See the companion piece to this article on how 3D printing is helping make personal protective equipment.
Compiled by Lorraine King AIA from a BDP Architects & Engineers Press Release and a BBC Health Report from 8 Apr 2020.
The board is delighted to welcome two new sponsors to the AIA UK! They are Portview Fit-Out Ltd. and Iris Ceramica Group. They join our “family” of corporate partners that also includes Beale & Co, Herman Miller, Laufen, and Roca.
Portview is a Belfast based contractor that is very active in the London and UK markets. Founded in 1975, Portview expanded into the UK in the early 1990s. Leveraging their expertise with high end interiors and their growing retail client base, the decision was taken in 2004 to specialize exclusively in the fit-out market and rebrand the company as Portview Fit-Out.
Tottenham Stadium
Recent projects include work at the new stadium for Tottenham Hotspurs, and Harvey Nichols department store. Portview has experience in the office, residential, retail, hospitality, and heritage markets. They are currently working with our 2020 AIA UK President Chris Musangi, on a super-luxe, prime residential Spa & Health facility, at the Southbank Place development by the London Eye. Portview has won numerous industry awards for their work.
We welcome Paul Scullion, Amy Black and their colleagues at Portview to the AIA! www.portview.co.uk
Founded in Italy in 1961, Iris Ceramica Group has grown to be the world leader in the manufacture of floor and wall ceramics for residential, commercial, and industrial projects. The group has 26 manufacturing plants and employs over 3,000 people around the world.
Matrix Floor Tiles
With more than 50 collections totalling over 2,500 items, Iris Ceramica is constantly demonstrating their commitment to the creation of ceramics with high technical and stylistic value. This is characterized by the leading-edge design that has been recognized by their many international prizes and awards.
With their London showroom located on Old Street in Clerkenwell, Iris Ceramica is well placed to serve the UK market. They are also currently working with Portview and our 2020 AIA UK President Chris Musangi, on the same super-luxe, prime residential Spa & Health facility, at the Southbank Place development by the London Eye. We are pleased to welcome Marco Corradi, Martina Terracciano, Giacomo Bertoni and their colleagues to the AIA! www.irisceramicagroup.com
The chapter would not be able to organize such a large and varied programme of events for our members without the generous support of our sponsors. Please take the opportunity to introduce yourself to Paul and Giacomo and their colleagues at one of our upcoming events. They will enjoy hearing from you!
Written by: Michael Lischer FAIA
MORIYAMA SAN | 11 FEBRUARY 2020
As winter tightened its grip on the Kingdom, we were back to the BFI for the start of one of the favourite AIAUK calendar events : The Movie Series. Our inaugural movie of 2020 was ‘Moriyama San,' by Bêka & Lemoine.
In preparation for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics, we made our way to Japan for our first screening. This documentary takes us through one week in the extraordinary-ordinary life of Mr. Moriyama. He is a Japanese art-, architecture- and music-enlightened amateur, who lives in one of the most famous examples of contemporary Japanese architecture, the Moriyama house, built in Tokyo in 2005 by Pritzker-prize winner Ryue Nishizawa (SANAA).
Introduced in the intimacy of this experimental microcosm, which redefines completely the common sense of domestic life, Ila Bêka recounts in a very spontaneous and personal way, the unique personality of the owner: An urban hermit living in a small archipelago of peace and contemplation in the heart of Tokyo. From noise music to experimental movies, the film lets us enter into the ramifications of Mr. Moriyama's free spirit. Moriyama-San is the first film about noise music, acrobatic reading, silent movies, fireworks and Japanese architecture!
This movie was unlike any we have ever screened before. It was very well received by the almost sold-out crowd in attendance, and generated huge debate. Some members from our new sponsors, Portview, also joined us for this screening. I am grateful to them and all those who set off our 2020 screenings to a roaring start!
PRECISE POETRY | 10 MARCH 2020
The 8th of March saw the World celebrate International Women’s Day, and for our screening on the 10th, we also celebrated the achievements of one of the many Women Architects. We screened ‘Precise Poetry' A documentary film about the famous Italian-Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi (b.1914 in Rome – d.1992 in São Paulo), who created poetry through architectural precision.
Told in a series of interviews on the eve of her 100th birthday, Bo Bardi’s colleagues and friends recount the socio-political constraints and personal events that would lead to the timelessness of her work. This cinematic journey through her most important architectural projects in São Paulo and Salvador da Bahia, poses the question of what remains of a person in the work they leave behind.
Firstly, on behalf of the board, I would like to thank director Belinda Rukschio for her immeasurable assistance. Thanks to Her commitment to architectural education, she was kind enough to give us this documentary at no charge. The AIAUK is most grateful to her for her magnanimity. This documentary was also almost sold-out, and generated some interesting debates from the sponsors, members & guests in attendance. It was nice to see such a rich amount of work, from a talented and under-published architect. Many thanks to our new sponsors from Iris Ceramica who joined us for their first screening, as well as the Sponsors from Portview. Many thanks to all who attended this final screening of the Winter 2020 movie nights. We were able to screen this documentary before the Covid-19 pandemic took hold and changed all of our lives. We are hopeful that this pandemic will be over in the next few weeks, and we look forward to welcoming all of you back to the BFI for our Autumn screenings, on 20 October and 03 November 2020. Stay safe and well!
Written by: Chris Musangi AIA