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!

Site Analysis presentations

25 October 2012: The large city groups delivered their presentations for each city, Rotterdam, Singapore and Abu Dhabi. After this stage, they form into individual or smaller groups of 2 or 3.

Singapore group

Singapore group

Rotterdam presenting

Rotterdam

Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi

Days of Site Analysis

22 October 2012: In the early stage of the project, the teams are looking at their sites (Rotterdam, Abu Dhabi and Singapore) for a presentation of their models and site analysis. 

Rotterdam site is taking shape, using lasercut wood sheets



Singapore team focusing on their graphic material for the site analysis PPT presentation

London Field Trip Oct 2012

6 October 2012: The Tall Building studio had a day trip to London, visiting key tall buildings.

We usually start the field trips in the London Building Centre where students can get an overall picture of the city, and see where new building clusters (white models) are being added. We can also see the current exhibitions at the centre. We then moved on to Liverpool St station and looked at Exchange House, Broadgate and the Broadgate Tower. We then walked south along Bishopsgate to the Heron Tower.
   Although our sites are in Rotterdam, Abu Dhabi and Singapore, we can't travel to these and back in a day. It is valuable for our students, especially the overseas ones, to see the capital city.

Broadgate Tower, SOM	Broadgate Tower, SOM
Walking south along Bishopsgate, the Heron Tower comes to view.	We are due for a tour of the Heron Tower and Architect Paul S. of KPF is there to show us round.

Until the floors are all let, the Heron Tower has a floor given over to visitors containing models of the building, and providing wonderful views in every direction.

There are parts of the south facade that do not have PV on, and its possible to get some of the best views in London, looking over the Square Mile towards the Thames.

The Gherkin in the foreground left (which we visited for lunch later) , Willis and Leadenhall in the middle ground and the London Bridge Shard in the distance. 

Model demonstrating the 'village' organisation of the floors in the Heron.

The elevator cores are on the South side and the entire core elevation is dappled with PV cells.

There is an amazingly large fish tank in the entrance lobby.

Looking north and downward view of the typical Heron Tower 'village' atrium.	Typical three storey high 'village' atrium. the glass walls surrounding it can be glass, or if a single tenant takes the entire 'village', the glass can be removed, and an open stair installed.
Construction photo of the Leadenhall Tower (Cheesegrater) by Rogers Stirk Harbour. The Ladderframe.	The east elevation of the Leadenhall tower, showing the latticed megaframe of the office spaces and the ladderframe that forms the north corner.
North elevation of the Leadenhall Tower, the main elevator core.	We walked south, across London Bridge to the London Shard. Looking back north, this is Rafael Vinoly's 'Nokia' Tower going up on Fenchurch St.
	We usually finish up in Canary Wharf, the home of the largest cluster of high-rise in London. We took a waterbus from the London Shard to Canary Wharf, a great way to see the city. At CW, it is also important to see the 'Groundscraper', the vast world that lives underground at Canary Wharf  - the shopping centre and the huge interior of Canary Wharf Jubilee Line station.

Water bus ride up the Thames

6 Oct 2012: Our field trip to London included a fast water bus ride up the Thames, from London Bridge to Canary Wharf. 

Looking west, downriver from Tower Bridge, with the City in the background, and St Katherine's dock on the right.

MArch STB Students arrive

25 September 2012: It is the start of term and we have a meeting with our M.Arch Sustainable Tall Building Students. Two of them are still stuck in transit somewhere, so on the first meeting, we see Amna and Douglas. We are expecting a TB Studio of about 18 students, but 4 of them will be the dedicated 'STB' group, doing both semesters with us, and finishing with a tall building oriented dissertation.

Douglas Saraiva (Brazil) and Amna Shahid (UK-Pakistan) with DNC and Phil. We had a lot of applications and hoped for more, but new restrictions on Visas and the UK border agency have made the UK less attractive as a destination for education. This effect is across the entire University.

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11 Jan 2013 PostScript: This Guardian article discusses the decline in overseas students coming to the UK as a result of the Government's 'crackdown on immigration'. It is damaging one of the most important 'export' industries of the UK! We hope that the specialist nature of our Sustainable Tall Buildings course will be enough to persuade people to make the journey here and cope with the bureaucracy of the UK Border Agency.

Shanghai CTBUH

23 Sept 2012: Here are a few more 'human interest' photos from the student competition event in Shanghai, taken from Facebook.

 Rongsi, Janet and Noura, in the exhibition of student projects

 Janet getting ready to present the details of the Healing Tower

 The Healing Tower panel

All the prizewinners from the final five

Rongsi, Janet and Noura, after presenting their design