Steve Fernandez brings Structure

29 Nov 2012: Steve Fernandez of Arups (Nottingham) came for the day and did his lecture on Tall Building Structure. He spent the rest of the day seeing the proposals of each of the 12 individuals or groups. This is his second year of visiting, and he has done much to raise the level of structural thinking in the TB Studio.

Steve vigorously demonstrating some thoughts about the Bicycling tower in Rotterdam



The Li-Li tower in Rotterdam is getting Steve's advice. When he first looked, they didn't have a plan of a typical hotel bedroom level, and they got a bit of criticism. So while Steve looked at another group for half an hour and returned, they had it all planned and drawn! Excellent!

Panorama of TB Studio

Panorama on 22 November 2012

Lukasz and Ivan visit TB Studio

22 November 2012: We had a wonderfully busy day with visits from both Lukasz Platkowski (Gensler) and Ivan Jovanovic (BDSP). At lunchtime we also had a lecture from Alastair Guthrie (Arups) and he stayed for some studio time in the afternoon. Professor Shihong from Beijing was also with us, as was Yuri (Malaysia). Every student had a chance for one-to-one tutoring with all of them.

Ivan and Yuri have a look at Douglas's design (Rotterdam)	Ivan chats to Hao Li and Yang Li (Rotterdam)
Lukasz looks at Jeff Smith's design for Singapore

Michael Photiou shows Ivan his School Tower design for Singapore.

Vivek, Song and Weiqi discuss their triple tower idea with Alastair Guthrie.

The whole room is buzzing with everybody circulating, discussing their ideas.

The Rotterdam groups are deeply absorbed in conversation, while in the background, the Abu Dhabi groups talk to Phil. 

Ole Scheeren uses our site!

14 November 2012: We have used a site on Beach Rd/Rochor Rd, Singapore, just between the Gateway towers and the Parkview tower. Its great to see a real scheme proposed for this site by Ole Scheeren, as published in Dezeen magazine.  In some ways, his site analysis has been similar to some of the better schemes our students have produced, most closely, the one by Pelin and Sonny last year.

First Interim Crit Nov 2012

15 Nov 2012: Three weeks after the site analysis, the teams are far enough advanced with their individual designs to have a first interim crit. Everybody gets at least two crits in the same day using a rota with two tutor teams. This doubles the tutor contact for them, and it is up to the students to make sense of the varying constructive advice they are given. 

Phil waving his magic wand over a Singapore scheme



Nearby, Jeff considers his triple tower idea for Singapore, and In the distance, there's a lot of thinking going on about vertical farming in Rotterdam



Phil's got some explaining to do, for Abu Dhabi



The Big Wheel comes to Rotterdam, as one group picks Bicycling as a theme

Tutorial progress with CCCC scheme

2 Nov 2012: our Culture Context Climate and Concept project is making progress, midway through the term. All the students have some sort of a scheme - it's always a nervous moment making that leap from analysis etc into an architectural idea that may fit the site. We are getting there!

The Singapore students are explaining their Tanjong Pagar schemes to DNC, Yuri and Phil.

Rotterdam students showing their first proposals for the Oude Havn site.

We have sites in Rotterdam, Abu Dhabi and Singapore, all with very different climatic conditions and social contexts. To make things more challenging, the R and S sites are over underground railway stations and tunnels.

A rather complicated proposal for Singapore!