Women in Architecture: Self-Development and Career Advancement for Mid-Level Professionals

Executive Coach, Karen Fugle has published a new report, ‘Women in Architecture: Self-Development and Career Advancement for Mid-Level Professionals.’

As we fast approach the end of 2020, we are delighted to bring you news from Executive Coach Karen Fugle, our expert on resilience and the art of building professional relationships.

The free report is available now in PDF format, featuring a foreword by Anna Schabel (chair of Women in Architecture). Downloadable from Karen’s website.

How satisfied are mid-level female architects with the speed and path of their career growth? How do they work on self-development, training, and opportunities for promotion? How do they perceive their growth alongside that of their male peers? These questions and more are assessed and analysed in the report.

The report deals with some very essential aspects of women’s mid-level careers: What can I, as an individual, do to bring my career to a new level? We hope that Karen’s new report empowers readers to use their own skills to create progress for themselves.

A form for anonymous feedback can be found here.

2020 AIA UK Design Awards Winners

The AIA UK Chapter hosted the 2020 Excellence in Design Awards Gala on the 28th October as a virtual event. Disruptions due to the evolving pandemic extended the awards schedule, but despite the uncertainty and disruptions of the year we were pleased to receive a fabulous host of submissions and to celebrate the jury’s selection of outstanding projects with the community digitally.

The 2020 awards were chosen from three overarching categories: Professional, Emerging Practice and Sustainability, a new addition. Within these categories the jurors chose winners across a diverse range of scales and sectors.

 The chapter extends thanks to our jury:

• Jane Duncan, Hon. FAIA, Jane Duncan Architects + Interiors

• Gerry O’Brien, AKT II Design Director

• Helen Newman,  Head of Sustainability at CBRE

• Christopher Musangi, AIA UK President

Our gratitude also goes to Portview, fit-out specialists, for their sponsorship of the 2020 Excellence in Design Awards.

Winners

Professional

Extra Large Project

Leeza Soho

ZHA

Leeza SOHO’s Beijing site is diagonally dissected by an underground subway service tunnel at the intersection of five new lines currently under construction on Beijing’s Subway network. Straddling this tunnel, the tower’s design divides its volume into two halves enclosed by a single facade. The space between these two halves extends the full height of the tower, creating the world’s tallest atrium at 194m, which rotates as the tower rises to realign the upper floors with Lize road to the north.

Large Projects

One Fen Court

Eric Parry Architects

One Fen Court is located at the heart of London’s insurance district. Constructed at the scale of a city block, it provides 41,000sqm of open and expansive floor space over 16 levels.  A new publicly accessible 2,200sqm roof garden called The Garden at 120 crowns the development.  The new building brings civic presence and an increase in the public realm of the City of London. It also brings colour. The use of Dichroic banding on ‘The Crown’ and two-tone metal finishes to the lower level brise soleil brings an ever changing kinetic colour palette to the building when seen from the street or the greater canvas of the cityscape.

Zayed Centre for Research into Rare Disease in Children

Stanton Williams

The Zayed Centre for Research into Rare Disease in Children reimagines the healthcare environment as an engaging civic experience in the heart of London. Designed for Great Ormond Street Hospital and University College London, the 13,000sqm facility combines pioneering translational research with clinical care and is the first purpose-built paediatric centre of its kind in the world.

Medium Projects

St Paul's School - General Teaching Building

Walters & Cohen Architects

The client’s intention was to create a new general teaching building fit for 21st century education that responds to the ethos of the school. The library has a  calming and inspiring view across the Thames and the timber cladding gives a warm, welcoming and traditional atmosphere. Founder’s Court is designed to allow clear and easy circulation while being an enjoyable and useful space for pupils to linger. The breakout spaces, Atrium and Founder’s Court have been an instant hit with students and staff. The ‘regular but random’ patterns of the facade bring light and ventilation into the building. The client has described the school as ‘great, not grand’, and the concrete here is elegant and beautiful while remaining simple and functional. 

English National Ballet

Glenn Howells Architects

A transformational project for English National Ballet who have relocated to this purpose built 93,000 sq ft ‘dance factory’ in East London. The new building significantly expands their accommodation by providing eight new rehearsal spaces, one of which has full stage rigging facilities. The design of the building opens up the activities of ENB to the public through the incorporation of large windows onto public spaces. The main challenge was providing the required range of flexible, state-of-the-art facilities on a narrow site and with a challenging budget. The design team achieved this by creating something that is elegant, pared-back, beautiful but also hard working; its character is defined by a celebration of exposed raw materials such as concrete ceilings and translucent glass walls.

Carnaby Court

Rolfe Judd

A place to shop, a place to work, a place to eat and a place to live all within the context of the historic, vibrant heart of The Carnaby Estate in Soho. Inspiration for the street elevation design was taken from the historic use in Soho of glazed tiles. A combination of glazed French lava stone and brick were used to form a series of layered frames within each façade.

Small Projects

Cork House

CSK Architects with the Bartlett UCL

Cork House in is the result of a holistic approach that connects the architectural to the ecological – the way it looks and feels is an expression of every stage of its life cycle, from the biodiverse cork forests right through to the potential for disassembly at the end of its very long life. 

Sustainability

Large Project

National Automotive Innovation Centre

Cullinan Studio

The National Automotive Innovation Centre (NAIC) at the University of Warwick is one of the largest research and development centres of its kind in Europe, housing up to 1,000 staff under one of the largest timber roofs in the world. The NAIC co-locates industry and academia, and aims to be a crucible for innovation towards the future of mobility, vital to the paradigm shift taking place across transport and the built environment in response to climate change. Internally, layered, day-lit meeting and movement spaces over large halls create a terraced landscape of shared workspace. Externally, the NAIC engages with the university campus with transparent ground floors showcasing the activities inside and an intensive sequence of landscaped edges and water channels. Between the ground floor and timber roof, an undulating mesh façade acts as a veil to direct sunlight whilst creating shifting patterns of light and shade.

Small Project

Cork House

CSK Architects with the Bartlett UCL

Internally the exposed cork captures light and shadow and creates an evocative sensory environment. It is gentle to the touch with a soft acoustic and a smoky aroma. All 1,268 blocks of expanded cork are prefabricated off site, and assembled on site by hand without mortar or glue, like an oversized organic Lego® system.  As a result, the whole house is designed for disassembly, so that in the distant future the pure cork can be re-used, recycled or returned to the biosphere to generate new growth.

Emerging Practice

Large Project

Chongqing Industrial Museum

WallaceLiu

This new museum of industrial history has been created amongst the remaining structures of an impressive steel works in the city of Chongqing, China. Enclosed exhibition spaces are lifted off the ground and nested within the skeleton of the old beams and columns to create a permeable ground floor, a labyrinth of open space, alternatively covered or uncovered, that culminates in a large open hall organising the building from the centre of its plan. The raised volumes that contain a composed exhibition narrative are linked by bridges at different levels where visitors are cyclically returned, through glimpses and framings, to the experience of the factory sheds. Wrapped in a pleated and perforated aluminium curtain, the building forms a flexible, blurred boundary with the epic landscape and industrial ruins of the historic factory site.

Medium Project

Ditton Hill House 

Surman Weston

Ditton Hill House is a new-build house on a suburban street in Surbiton. With its pitched roof and pure white walls, it might at first glance seem at odds with its neighbours in this leafy district of west London. Inspired by the local vernacular the house borrows the language of mock-Tudor, turning it on its head by expressing it in a steel frame – the materiality of modernity. The inherent strength of the steel exoskeleton permitted a thinning of the structural steel, which helps to express the pitched form diagrammatically as if it were drawn by a child. The house is designed to offer a range of spatial experiences from a triple-height entrance space to an intimate hallway and an expansive living room. Upstairs, bedrooms and bathrooms are housed within the “loft space”, which, at five metres in height and primarily lit from above, has an almost church-like peaceful quality.

Small Project

Nýp Guesthouse

Studio Bua

The Guesthouse Nýp at Skarðsströnd is situated in a former sheep farm overlooking the Breiðafjörður Bay Nature Reserve in western Iceland. Constructed in 1936, the building was deserted in the 1970s, falling into disrepair before the new owners began rebuilding in 2001. Since 2006, it has come to be known as a cultural hub, playing host to exhibitions, lectures, courses and workshops. Staying true to Nýp’s ethos of sustainability and slow tourism, a vernacular approach with a form based on local turf homes was taken. A gradual renovation that focused on restoring and reinterpreting historical features while making full use of local labour, techniques and materials such as stone-turf retaining walls and tiles handmade from local clay. Driftwood, salvaged from a neighbouring beach, has been used as columns to support the new floor. Steel handrails, timber doors and beams have been salvaged from building sites in Reykjavik old town.

Commendations

• Belle Vue - Morris + Company

• Energy Hub - Morris + Company  

• The Faithlie Centre - Moxon Architects

Shortlisted

• Beijing Daxing International Airport - ZHA

• Eton College - John Simpson Architects

• Niederhafen River Promenade - ZHA

• Salamander - Memalondon

• Town House, Kingston University - Grafton Architects

RE-NATURING CITIES – How building with timber can help cities become greener while promoting human well- being

This article is reprinted and adapted from the ROCA GALLERY NEWSLETTER – an AIA UK Sponsor. It has been included as part of the AIA’s commitment to member news.  If you are aware of UK Chapter members’ involvement in newsworthy projects, research or events, please bring them to our attention via Secretary@aiauk.org and we will publish the story.   

Photo Credit: PLP Architecture

This article documents a presentation made in early 2019 by past AIA UK Chapter President, Kevin P Flanagan, AIA FRAIC, at the Roca Gallery in Barcelona in honour of a travelling exhibition entitled ‘Global Advances in Engineered Mass Timber Towers – Timber Rising’. The exhibition featured in London and Barcelona, with Toronto + Vancouver pending.

Introduction 

What a wonderful opportunity to be presenting designs for Oakwood Timber Towers Series in Barcelona, a city whose birth owes much to those heralded seafarers of the ancient world, lovers of timber used both in navigation and construction, who were the great observers of nature and manufacturers of timber buildings. 

Constructing with Nature 

As we arrived in the 21st century, it was only natural to look to new materials and means of construction that better suit our latest thinking and integrate the benefits of new AI, block-chain procurement and efficiencies in cost, as well as precision of robotic assembly, to provide a better and greater number of shelters that are more healthful – more natural in the city.  For a seafaring nation, what could be more ‘nature’ than timber? 

For four years, designs have been undertaken under the aegis of the University of Cambridge, Smith and Wallwork, Perkins and Will and PLP Architecture in the UK on a research proposal that investigates the benefits of the use of natural materials in construction.   The Oakwood Timber Tower Series is a realistic proposition that studies the benefits of using engineered mass timber – including grasses like bamboo – as a sustainable building material, drawn as a crop from the managed forests of Europe.  As we progressed, we realised that it was the beauty of the several designs, and the ease with which the general public understood the inherent benefits of the 21st century material that was most unexpected. 

Proposed Oakwood Tower Barbican, London. Photo Credit: PLP Architecture

When I look at the first project on our Oakwood Timber Town series, at the Barbican, London, I think of the music that accompanies our presentation video.  It was The Asturias by I. Albeniz, played on a (wooden) Spanish guitar.  The music captures the sensibility, softness, ductility and strength of our design – though not the hardness – of things growing inexorably, vigorously and softly. 

Making Cities More Liveable 

It is those feelings of a natural quality, precision, and performance that these engineered mass timber/ CLT designs imbue; of a natural ordered system being the inspiration for a new way of thinking about our cities, something of a natural scale worthy of Gaudí.  A kind of biophilia for a smart city. 

 Timber has a higher aesthetic appeal for humans than concrete, encouraging a sense of well-being among residents.  Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) establishes a new level of quality control and fire protection.  It brings a new structure and form.  This is a new 21st century proposition to make our cities more liveable and create a happier populous.  The design proposals for Oakwood Timber Tower, afforded by AI, foresee a comprehensive re-envisioning of our cities, with buildings made more easily and far less expensively using mass-produced interchangeable kits of parts, assembled directly on site in half to two thirds the time and two thirds of the costs, in a co-living urban planning concept. 

High-rise Timber Buildings 

Neighbours in dense cities like the faster construction, as it is less disruptive and safer in local neighbourhoods where children abound.  Clients like being able to build up to 20-30 per cent more within the given time.  Engineered timber is also lighter, therefore can conceivably be used to extend existing concrete buildings upwards –as is being done in Paris– while creating the potential for modular, on-site staged construction (as a Jump Factory) based on robotic assembly precision. 

The type of wood these new buildings would use is regarded as a ‘crop’, being perfectly sustainable – always growing, always abundant.  The amount of crop forest in the world is currently expanding. Canada alone could produce more than 15 billion m³ of crop forest in the next 70 years – enough to house around a billion people, while sequestering many billions of lifetimes of carbon footprints. 

Oakwood Tower from the Thames by Night. Photo Credit: PLP Architecture

At present, the world’s tallest timber building is an 80 m, all timber office tower in Scandinavia.  Our proposal for a timber tower of over 300 m high would make it the tallest building in London, becoming a leader in this technology. The proposal would create over 1,000 new residential units in a 100,000 million sq-m mixed-use tower, and mid-rise terraces integrated within the Barbican’s timberland green courtyards, in Central London. 

 Perhaps the most obvious concern for potential residents of homes built primarily from timber is fire risk; here we advocate two stair cores and sprinklers, plus an advance and improvement on existing fire regulations for safety, so that the proposed building would eventually meet or exceed every existing fire regulation currently in place. 

Human Well-being Through Timber 

Recent research has also shown that timber buildings can have positive effects on their user and occupant’s health.  Some recent studies have also shown that children taught in schools with timber structures may perform better than in those made of concrete.  Scientists Roger Ulrich and Marc Berman in the US have been studying the triggers that stimulate these very positive health and well-being responses.  Scandinavia has also shown illness recuperation times greatly improving, particularly related to stress and circulation, even leading to heart benefits.  There is also a perk in cognitive skills in one side of the brain dealing with temporal location.  Berman has seen an improvement of some 20 per cent in memory and alertness, while people gain a more positive outlook on their day – a ‘spring in their step’. 

 Integrating Nature in Cities 

The purer the experience, the closer to nature, the more real the saturation of the colours, the more impactful and more overwhelming the influence.  We seem naturally wired to perform best in our evolutionary homes, looking at timber and vegetation.  Greening the streets has also been linked to cognition improvement. These more relaxed settings naturally create a desire to linger and perambulate, walking being a significant health benefit. 

The integration of flora and fauna in cities again can potentially render a quantifiable benefit equivalent to gifting each neighbour 10,000 euros, while making them more sociable, and reducing their heart rates, adding –it is said– 7 years more to their life expectancy. Cities still have the potential to integrate nature in them and become a better place to work and live together, share ideas, and, perhaps, fall in love – it is only natural. 

Written by: Kevin P Flanagan, AIA FRAIC 

Self-Reporting Credit

"Zoom call. Teams call. Teams call. Oh, an interesting Zoom call! Can I get CES credit for this? ". You may have attended a webinar or presentation and asked yourself a similar question, and the answer is Yes! You can self report up to 6 hours of your annual AIA requirements.

This is done by filling out a form on the AIA National website. This form comes with almost no guidance on what is required in the Learning Statement, aside from a word count. AIA National will then review and approve or return comments 

While I can't offer definitive guidance on what would be accepted, here are some suggestions on how to complete the self-report.

To test out self reporting, I submitted a report for attending a webinar panel presented by our friends at New London Architecture. I kept the course description relative short, and made it clear that it was an online webinar and listed the presenters. For the learning statement I used the more detailed description of the event. The learning statement should make the content you learned and the topics covered. If you checked the record of other courses on your AIA Transcript, you would find several learning objectives listed. In practical terms, the learning statement takes the place of those learning objectives.

Self Reporting Credits

It is possible to self-report some credits towards your annual AIA requirements. At the moment, there are numerous webinars available in the UK that are not offered via an AIA Continuing Education Provider. These may be suitable to self-report.

You may not self-report for Health, Safety, and Welfare (HSW) credit. Additionally, some state licensing boards will not accept self-reported credits to meet mandatory continuing education (MCE) requirements. Please note that HSW constitutes 12/18 of your AIA learning unit requirements. 

Please note, you may not self-report credits for courses that are offered directly by an AIA Continuing Education Provider. For example, please do not self-report for a lecture organised by the AIA UK Chapter where the chapter is offering credits.

To access the self-report form on the AIA website please visit: https://www.aia.org/my-account/self-report . The information required includes:

• Course/Activity Name

• Description of the Activity (less than 1000 words)

• Learning Statement (250 - 1000 words)

• Completion Date

• Number of Learning Units (LU)

State Licensing Requirements

For example, AIA NY Chapter notes that self-reported activities will not be credited towards the continuing education requirements for your registration renewal as an architect in New York. 

Written by Alex Miller AIA

Virtual Building Tour – Amorepacific

As part of its continuing “Virtual Building Tours” series, the AIA UK Chapter’s most recent tour went beyond the confines of the UK by visiting the Amorepacific HQ in Seoul, South Korea on 10 September 2020.  Christoph Felger, a managing director and partner from the Berlin office of David Chipperfield Architects, gave an enlightening and thought-provoking virtual tour of the new headquarters for Amorepacific, Korea’s largest beauty company.  The building opened in June 2018 and is located in the centre of the capital city.  Interestingly, the tour was entitled “Architecture of Engagement and Connectivity” not only because of the aspirations of the project but also due to Christoph’s own views on the current state of the profession, built environments and our cities. 

The tour began with Christoph’s insights as to how cities are being shaped by private investment and capital and, perhaps, the failings of the existing systems.  He posed the question “What kind of society are we?” based on the buildings, built environment or public realms we are constructing.  He sees anonymous architecture and standardisation coming from both the fact that too few architects are involved in the construction of buildings and the quantum of buildings built in the last 25 years.  In addition, planning authorities, once the protectors of cities and public realm, are now unable to keep up with the speed of investment and are losing influence over the common place (public realm). We as architects must influence the discussion and debate around rethinking buildings as holistic economic, social and public investments. 

The new Amorepacific headquarters is presented as a “single, clear volume” with the proportions of the building having been carefully developed around a central courtyard to maximise the effectiveness of natural ventilation and daylight. The design is presented as an expression of social, cultural and professional ambitions of the company. The combining of the workplace with other communal activities further highlights the company’s ambition of a global community.  Amorepacific’s current CEO believes that we can “create a more beautiful and healthy society through outstanding building design” and symbolically, the building echoes these aspirations of the company.

David Chipperfield Architects design is inspired by traditional Korean architecture, and is characterised by an intimate yet open layout that provides subtle transitions between outside and inside, stimulating the well-being of employees. Three large openings in the façade accommodate elevated gardens that bring nature into the building and create spectacular views of the city horizon, a nearby park and the distant mountains. There is a total of 30 floors, with seven levels underground, providing capacity for 7,000 employees. The design provides for a colonnade around the building on a podium, permeable on all four sides.  Keeping with concepts of connectivity, diversity and global community, the lower levels host cultural spaces, including a museum, a library and cafés, which are open to the public. With a further nod to work and wellbeing, the 5th floor provides an external garden, cafeteria, a gym, a lounge and massage room for staff. The offices and workspaces are situated on the floors above. Whereas the employees previously worked in cubicles, they are currently housed in an open office environment with daylighting.  Amorepacific is a triumph to the aspirations of a client with vision and an eloquent interpretation and response to a site, building form, and functionality.

The AIA UK Chapter will continue to host virtual buildings tours throughout the year offering architects the opportunity to visit notable buildings that have particular design interests in the UK and abroad. 

Written by Gregory Fonseca, AIA 

AIA BIKE TOUR / The Weird & Wonderful World of the Thames Path

Part of the Siemens Complex, once on the forefront of modern communications technology. Photo credit: C Musangi AIA

The last AIA UK live event for 2020 was a movie night held on 10 March, 13 days before ‘lockdown’.   Originally scheduled for July, the postponed bike trip was re-organised for 12 September, almost exactly 6 months after the last live event and just 2 days before the ‘rule of 6’ limiting social groups was imposed by the government.  We made it just under the wire.

Given the uncertainty about the future direction of the covid pandemic, we still do not know at the time of writing whether this bike trip was a brief interlude in the world of social distancing or a foretaste of normality’s return.  Either way, the group was determined to make the best of it.

Waiting in the obscure East London village of Slade Green as the full group gathered, we chatted incessantly about nothing in particular – traffic on the way, zoom headaches, random mother’s advice, frozen pasta, microwave cooking, refrigerator repairs, new bikes and – of course – the lucky, dry weather.  And we continued chattering on and off for the next 8 hours.  How wonderful to be with like-minded friends and colleagues after such a long break.  

An inauspicious start from Slade Green... Photo credit: E Top, Int’l Assoc AIA

In theory had we not met the deadline, we might have been exempt from the ‘rule of 6’ given the outdoor nature of the tour or – even more appropriately – given its educational content.  There is no denying that the 8 hours were jammed packed with information. Unlike previous bike trips, the Chapter was finally able to offer 2 HSW credits as part of the total 7 LUs (2 more than advertised) for continuing education. 

As customary with a tour led by architect and historian, Ben O’Looney, architectural history was integrated with the social and economic background, so that the whole riverscape was connected in time and space. There were several themes interlinking the sights (inter alia):

Flood control and flood plain building precautions – tidal locks at tributary rivers, the Thames Barrier itself, Thamesmead surface water networks…

Protecting the flood plain. Photo credits: C Musangi AIA

Military ordnance and installations – medieval moats, ammunition manufacture and precautions (and explosive failures), cannon design, ship building, gun embankments, military barges, mulberry harbours…

Innovative industries, factories and conservation  – the Erith Corn Oil Works (still operating), the Siemens complex (linking the world with underwater cables), Ford Dagenham plant (at one time the largest in Europe), continuing concrete works (London is still growing)…

Industrial heritage of all sorts and sizes. Photo credits: A Miller AIA x 1 and E Fitzpatrick AIA x 3

Waste control and energy generation – the London Super Sewer, district heating, landfill earthworks, wind turbines, the Belvedere ‘quartet’; 

Cory Waste to Energy Plant (Here)

Crossness Sludge Incinerator (Here)

Crossness Sludge Fertiliser Plant (Here)

Crossness Victorian Pumping Station(Here) 

The sadly neglected Crossness Incinerator – with its futuristic curves - still plays an important environmental role. Photo credit: C Musangi AIA

River enjoyment – the Thames Path, the Thamesmead Loop, Diller Scofidio Renfros’ walkway (‘The Tide’), riverside sculpture, the Greenwich museums…

Residential growth – New city developments close to industrial sites, urban regeneration through historic conservation, controversial developments on Greenwich Peninsula…

The two vastly different Thames communities of Thamesmead and Woolwich Arsenal merited special attention.

Thamesmead mainly consists of social housing built from the mid-1960s onwards on former marshland, designed with an intent to solve the area’s social housing problems.  Futuristic ideas included linking walkways, flood control measures and lakes and canals used as a calming influence.  

Wending through the Thamesmead walkways. Photo credit: C Musangi AIA

Since 2000, attempts have been made to overcome the problems with the original concept – such as the lack of community amenities and a cohesive centre.  We found Thamesmead – with its bike route ‘loop’ and modern looking housing blocks – surprisingly pleasant as we stopped by a lakeside for lunch and sketching.  But the main problem remains its transportation isolation - you seemingly cannot get there from anywhere.

Woolwich Arsenal on the other hand is blessed with links to everywhere and more obvious unban amenities.  Not only is there Thames Clipper access, but it is also served by the DLR, National Rail and – awaiting completion – an Elizabeth underground connection.  

Cannon fodder in the Woolwich Arsenal historic district. Photo credit: A Miller AIA

The riverfront’s wide avenue of historic, well conserved buildings  gives a unique feel of openness and charm to the thriving town.

The other side of biking enjoyment is – of course – the hard work.  We ended up at Greenwich too late to enjoy the museums, but not too late to enjoy the refreshment potential of the Cutty Sark pub. 

London in evening glory. Photo credit: C Musangi AIA

For those not familiar with Ben O’Looney – who teaches architecture for New York University’s London programme and leads architectural River Tours for Open City – check out his sketching video made for the Illuminated River Foundation HERE.  Perhaps a future sketching session with Ben sans bike tour might be on the cards…

Follow the route via the ‘slide show’.  Pictures contributed by all the AIA Chapter Board member participants: Etain Fitzpatrick, Lorraine King, Maria Loring, Alex Miller, Chris Musangi, Katharine Storr, Ecehan Top plus guests.

Written by Lorraine King, AIA

Social distancing in style; bike riding IS safe. Photo credit: C Musangi AIA