Wednesday, January 26, 2011

All submitted to the Isover!

26 Jan '11: The students improved their work after the crit, and the final submission date was 24th Jan.


It is great that the Nottingham students managed 100% completion and submission, with some great improvements to the panels since the crit. We had been pretty free with our pens all over the drawings during the crit with ideas for improvement and addition, all of which seem to have been listened to and done. 

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Crit for the Passive Skyscraper

19 Jan'11: It has been a superhuman effort, but between 32 of us, we have, mostly succeeded. I say mostly, because this is only the completion of stage one, the Isover competition is global, and we have more stages to go. This stage has to be uploaded to Isover next week and then will be considered during that week. I cannot post images on this blog until after the judges have decided.
DNC and Phil, standing, with international students
of the design team providing a wonderful dinner.
  We remain hopeful that a few of our schemes will be good enough to be considered for display at Ecobuild in March 2011, at Earls Court.
Ivan Jovanovic and Chris Gaylord joined us for the day from London, as examiners. The students had the unnerving experience of having us study the drawings in silence for the first 5 minutes, imagining that we were Isover judges without the luxury of students present to explain things. Then we allowed them to talk, explain, and of course answer questions. The whole conversation concluded with as much advice as we could give them for improving the panels before the competition submission. Ivan and DNC focused strongly on the Passivhaus strategy and explanation, and wider environmental aspects. Chris and Philip focused on urbanistic presence, tall building planning and configuration. Together, we hope that the students know what to do for the remainder of the week.
  Many of us met up later in the evening, in Nosh, in Beeston market, for very good chinese dinner!