Joana Gonzalez visits Tall Building Gonzalez

9 May 2013: Prof Joana Gonzalez used to be a frequent tutor in 2007, 2008 and 2009, and since then has been working with BDSP, the AA School and writing two books. She made a very welcome return in 2013, spending a day with us, looking at every scheme and delivering a lecture. Her specialism is environmental strategy, and the special focus today was the design of facades.

Joana delivered a lecture on facades, particularly the double skin facade. A few years ago she was favourable to it, but since writing her book, she has developed a healthy skepticism about it, particularly in the British climate. As Ken Shuttleworth frequently points out, there is a benefit in returning to 'more Wall than Glass'. This idea can produce more thermally stable buildings and reduce the need for double facades (which are more necessary for fully glazed buildings).


Joana and Noura look at the Learning Tree


Joana and Noura look at the Big Blend


Joana and Noura look at Jay's scheme



Joana and Noura look at ATA


It's been a good day and it's time to get the train home - enough students are left for a group photograph.
Thankyou Joana!

Ken Shuttleworth visits Tall Building Studio 8 May'13

8 May 2013: We had a major triple-table tutoring day. We were honoured to have Ken Shuttleworth (of Make Architects) visiting us for a day. We also had a tutoring day from Jason Seward (head of Fire Engineering at WSP-Genivar) and Akshay Sethi (alumnus of this studio, now working at Gensler and visiting us for the first time). We are getting to the end of the tutoring period of the semester now, so it is important to finalise the designs and ensure that the students are happy to draw up what they have now.



Jason Seward started with a lecture on Fire Engineering



Jason Seward lectures on Fire Engineering. Fresh air pressurisation of core and stair lobbies is a major topic which was explained in detail.



Ken looks at the Zzyzx! design: they made two entirely new models overnight for him!



Akshay Sethi looks at Jayanth's scheme



While waiting for the tutorial, work continues



Jason has a Fire tutorial with Learning Tree



Jason has a Fire tutorial with ATA



Ken's advising the U-Cube group: should something more exciting be done with the crown of the building?

The Zzyzx! group made a larger model of the vertical farm for the FCT hand in, and it's big enough to wear



Akshay's looking at the ATA scheme

Akshay has questions about ATA's core connecting the two main towers



Ken is studying the GOAL! design: the upper part of the twin tower seems oversize, and the podium buildings need jazzing up a bit!



Jason is trying to improve the cores of the Zzyzx! group



Ken studies the Learning Tree



Akshay looks at the GOAL! design



Big Blend are trying to grow algae, and Ken is trying to improve their cores and the slenderness ratio of their towers



Zzyzx! have conjoined twin towers with two different ways of doing the cores, and Akshay is looking for improvements



Jason is rounding off his day's tutoring with a study of the GOAL! design



Ken has some significant suggestions to make for the ATA design: they need a day to decide to take on the challenging new ideas



Akshay with the U-Cube group



Nearly time for the train to London, last moments of tutoring: Ken with GOAL! and Akshay with Big Blend.

Tall Building Tutorials 1st & 2nd May

3 May 2013: We had a double day of tutoring this week as it is near the end of the semester, and soon there will be no more tutoring left to do, and the teams must complete the presentation. We had Dik Jarman as a guest on Wednesday 1st May, and he hasn't seen the schemes before, so it was a good test of the readability of the student drawings. Much has been changed since the tutorials of the previous week, and all of the designs had enough for Dik to get to grips with. The groups also had videos to show, and really some of them were a very good start, for a first attempt.

We look at group ATA's design - now a twin tower with a share core between



Group Learning Tree explain their facade colouring ideas to Dik (and showed us an excellent fly through video)



Jayanth explains his megabraced frame



Even when we are not in the studio, work carries on in the sunshine courtyard in front of the Marmont cafe.



Group U-Cube (new name), with cubic architecture on large outriggers



Group Big Blend have algae farming facades, and the best video of the day!



2nd May 2013: We had a double visit from Paolo Beccarelli and Yuri Hadi, both from within the department. Paolo spent half an hour with each group studying their proposals for using ETFE or for atrium glazing.



Yuri was specialising in Ground Plane, Podium and Basement design ideas. We have never before gone to this level of detail, the designs are more thoroughly developed than ever!



The Tall Building studio is a wonderfully busy place on studio days, even when the groups are not having a tutor at their desk, they are continuing to work in between tutorials.



Paolo is checking out the algae tubes and panelled facade of Big Blend.



Yuri is discovering that group ZZYZX! basement is far too large, and we are trying to reduce the footprint, by deepening it and introducing rental fleet of LPG cars to reduce the number of residents' cars required.

First Tall Building crit of the Summer Term 2013

24 April 2013: The term has started and it is the first crit/tutorial day of the term. We were lucky to get both Lukasz Platkowski (Gensler) and Steve Fernandez (Arups) up on the same day. The day was a pin-up day, so there were posters on the wall, although later some tutorials moved to the tables (not so much standing and leaning, less stress on the back!)

Steve examines the Goal! project	Steve checking out the Zzyzx! twin tower project
Steve listens to the Learning Tree group	Lukasz on the ATA project: should it be a zig-zag or a twin tower?
Steve and Lukasz, on Jayanth and ATA respectively	Steve finding that Urban Crack need to make their megacolumns pass through
Lukasz looking at podium proposal by Learning Tree	There's a real buzz in the studio when we have three tutors and all students asked to write into a feedback form for all schemes
Lukasz and Grace consider the Big Blend! This will have an algae growing facade	Lukasz suggesting that the vertical elements of the Goal! should have deeper floorplates

[all photos by DNC]