Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Field trip to London 30 Jan 2013

30 January 2013: On a sunny bright January day, we had a one day trip to London for a Tall Buildings Walkabout. We had 18 from the Tall Building Studio and 15 from the Long Span Structures Studio, using the same bus.
Both studios started at the Building Centre in Store St. We almost always do this because it has a vast model of London, frequently updated, that shows the existing proposed and recent architecture of London.
   The Long span people went on from here to see the British Museum, the Excel centre and footbridge and cablecar, the Millennium Dome and the Thames Barrier.
While there, we had the chance to see the mini-version of the Prototyping Architecture exhibition that had been created by Prof Michael Stacey and some helpers, mostly from his 6th year studio in Nottingham. It looked better in the tighter and darker environment of the Building Centre exhibition space. 
We moved on to the offices of MAKE, the architect's practice founded by Ken Shuttleworth after he left Norman Foster's. John Prevc spoke to us, and we heard a lot about the master planning project for the Heygate area, adjacent to our site. Although we are not using Heygate, the lecture revealed a lot about the area, but for the students, I thought the more useful revelation was the methodology used by Make to compose and to communicate their proposals.
Here we are in Whitfield St, having heard John and about to depart for the Elephant and Castle. The Red hat is a great benefit because it is so very visible in daylight. We started with 18 students, and despite walking the plan of London, using the Tube for several journeys, walking through subways and using a bus, we somehow managed to finish up with 18!
At the Elephant, we had a good look at the site with the two possible locations for building Tall, over the [now demolished] hotel or the [now demolished] leisure centres. The park [churchyard] is likely to stay intact, with its mature trees.
A year ago, this view looking north was dominated by two functioning leisure centres. I like the circle of standing stones in the park.
Looking north from our site, we can see the shopping centre in the distance, and the edge of a highrise on the right that is the neighbour to the Strata and is being comprehensively refurbished. 
The London cyclists' 'superhighway' goes right through our site, and we would want to keep this too (I hope the students agree). In the distance is the Strata, residential tower.
Just before it got too dark to take any more photos, here is the group in the Broadgate Circus - looking at the ice-rink. We had a hurried time seeing everything and getting back to the tube station in time, so there wasn't time to have a coffee and watch the students skating!

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

New semester, new tall building group

29 Jan 2013: We had the first Project briefing for the Elephant and Castle project for 2013. Tomorrow, expect some more picture of the visit. There are 18 in the studio, and here are 9 of them! Our site is the triangle of land north west of the 'GTON' part of Newington Butts. The 'Rec Cen' is to be demolished (in real life) and we have that site, plus the old hotel site south of the churchyard.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

CTBUH book by our alumni

23 Jan 2013: This book originated as a dissertation by Ruba Salib, one of our tall building students from 2008. The diss was considered good enough to be converted to a technical book, and Ruba spent some months in Chicago and with the co-authorship of Dr Antony Wood it is now published in 2013 as a CTBUH book. 

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Award for a Singapore design

22 Jan 2013: Congratulations to Thi Anh who following her group's design for a Vertical Aviary last year won the 2012 'Design for a Sustainable Future’ Award. Anh is now working with Pomeroy Studio in Singapore
Anh was in a group with Owen Rees-Jones and Yiwei Ding.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Tall dinner at Nosh!

17 January 2013: It's the end of the semester, we've had the crit, and all that remains is to tidy up portfolios and submit them after the weekend. The essays were handed in earlier in the day. So, we took up most of the space in a small chinese restaurant (Nosh in Beeston) for an enjoyable dinner of chinese food, along with rice wine, Baileys, Bucks Fizz and Belgian Cider. Read some of the reviews of Nosh, it is the most authentic chinese restaurant I have seen outside of China.
Groundscraper shot of some of the food.... it just kept on coming, the chef in the kitchen deserves a medal!
Phil takes a photo of our three students who have perhaps tried too much of the Baileys and belgian cider!!
How lucky for Mr Song to be sitting with such beauties!
As we leave, we get the restaurant lady to record the moment! Wonderful evening!

Tall building crit

16 January 2013: We had the final presentations on Wednesday. Here's a panoramic photo of the crit room, some time in the afternoon, during a break in the action. 
Peng describes his design for Abu Dhabi
Li and Li's design for a hotel in Rotterdam
Li and Li's design for a hotel at Blaak in Rotterdam
Douglas' scheme for a mixed use cultural tower in Rotterdam
Bicycling tower in Blaak, Rotterdam with Yan and Jiawei
Jeff has a scheme for opening up and above Tanjong Pagar station in Singapore

Michael has a scheme for two schools and residential 
apartment above Tanjong Pagar station in Singapore

Matt is proposing vertical farming structures for Singapore
Vivek, Song and Weiqi have a triple tower with skyparks for Tanjong Pagar, Singapore
Vivek, Song and Weiqi have a triple tower with skyparks for Tanjong Pagar, Singapore
Chengsheng and Fang's proposal for modular housing triple tower in Singapore

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Scholarships for PG students

Are you an international student interested in studying the MArch in Sustainable Tall Buildings? If so, check out the scholarships that are available here: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/internationalstudents/scholarshipsfeesfinance/scholarships/index.aspx#international

For more information about the MArch Sustainable Tall Buildings course, see:
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/engineering/departments/abe/postgraduate/msc/marchinsustainabletallbuildings.aspx