Images from TB crit of 13 December

26 Dec 2013: The crit of 13 Dec wasn't final, so it is enough to photograph samples off the wall, rather than show in high resolution. Here are a couple of images from each of the Masters groups.

Harsh, Kushboo, Sanjiv: The Sports tower cluster in Tanjong Pagar, Singapore

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Shuo, SiYi, Lucia : the Groene Landbouw cluster in Rotterdam

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Jay, Even, Chao: the Awakening Trees tower in Singapore

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TB party at DNC house 15 Dec 2013

15 Dec 2013: Every semester we try to organise a party at the Peveril Solar house, but the semester is so busy, we normally wait till the end of term, after Graduation. It's usually a Pot Luck, meaning that everybody brings some food as a contribution.

Shuo and Khushboo


Chen and Chukai are here for graduation. Chen was a Tall Building student in 2012-2013 year. They are about to fly to China shortly after the party.


Our three scholarship students from India, Harsh, Khushboo and Sanjiv, have done a lot of cooking.


Forgot to photograph the first contributions, but quick! get a photo of the dessert!


Lucia (Indonesia) and Chen and Shuo (China). Slightly mystified after DNC tried to explain the origins of the English Civil War (1642-1649) and Nottingham's role in it.


Shuo is clever at doing things with hair, so she is trying it out on Chen. The others are gathering for a group photo!


The group photo is nearly ready, but DNC and Chukai are missing….


Set the self take, but for DNC, there's only time to creep into the base of the group! Oh dear, looks like the group are at a wake.

Tall Building Crit for Masters 13 Dec 2013

13 December 2013: Last day of term, and it is time for the interim final crit for the Masters students. This isn't the final 'final crit' - they have a vacation ahead to improve, validate and present the design, so it's for good advice. We will have an exhibition and portfolio submission in January. We had Sixth yr Matt Humphreys, Engineer Lydia and Graduand Huang Chen as guest reviewers.


Harsh, Khushboo and Sanjiv amaze us all with SIX metres of continuous scroll of printout of their Sport-XLA project - slightly shorter than the Bayeux Tapestry, but containing many more images. There is a high degree of depth in the drawings, including detailed apartment plans. The scheme is still difficult to understand due to the complexity of the bridges and sport venues, but we try hard (sorry, only have the one photo).


The Rotterdam Groene Landbouw Toren project has been largely redesigned in just one week, but you would hardly know it, judging by the pin up - there are 3D CAD models, large section, new physical model, and most of the important bits planned - and more importantly, it is a lot better than a week ago. There is the 'Urban Window onto Oudehaven' concept added to their busy agenda.


Shuo demonstrates the design using the physical model.

With all Bioclimatic design, it is very important to know where the Sun is.    The Rotterdam students have done their best to make sure that Philip knows where the sunlight comes from! Another excellent use for an orange.

Philip checks out the site planning and ground plane design of the Groene Landbouw Toren, Rotterdam.


Shuo and Lucia listen to comments about office and hotel plans, and Huang Chen looks on.


Lydia and Phil listening to the explanation of the Awakening Trees group design for Singapore.


Awakening Trees group explain their plans.

On Monday 16, Phil is due to do a talk about Presentation methods, and DNC and Phil see students to discuss what more they need to do over the vacation. 

Tall Building Graduation 13 Dec 2013

13 December 2013: Friday morning is Graduation Day for the Masters, so Phil and David took off to the University Sports Centre to take part.

Amna Shahid achieved a distinction in 2012-2013, despite formidable difficulty of daily travelling from Peterborough and a family to look after. Highly deserved! She did a residential tower in Abu Dhabi, a University tower in London and a dissertation about Islamic symbolism in tall building architecture.	Yuri Hadi has been doing his PhD for some years and now graduates. As a PhD student he has been very helpful with some studio tutoring in Tall Buildings.
	Putri Novianty and Grace Susanto are two of the best students we have had in the TB Studio, and we also met Yang Li who was in the first semester doing a Hotel tower for Rotterdam.

Huang Chen was in the second semester of 2012-13, doing her 'Folding Tower' with two classmates. 

Tall Building Crit of 12th December

12 December 2013: It's the day for the December crit of the Tianjin group (Fifth years). They have another month before exhibition and portfolio.


Alfie show us his residential tower with its emphasis on courtyards, terraces and social spaces.


Chris shows us his tower, as a place for spiritual retreats, meditation, worship or just a hotel for calm tourism.


James has a tower for recycling of modern consumer goods, particularly computers, phones and laptops, with exchanges for selling precious metals.


Philip N has a residential tower that also includes vertical farming, with an emphasis on valuable pharmaceutical plants.


Giulia has a three school tower


Haniyyah's Dance academy tower


Laura's plans for bicycling towers are developing well, although we advise more dwelling units in the towers.


Alex's vertical air cleaning tower is looking good.


The Rotterdam group showed us their programme for the week. This seems like a good idea to plan the work week out, and to have a system for work transfer if jobs get done too quickly or are taking too long. They even remember to include instructions to sleep, eat, re-charge phones and laptops!

Another round of Case Studies 4.12.13

4th December 2013: We had our second and final round of Tall Building case studies,with plenty to learn from each one.

Siyi tells us about the GSW building, Berlin



Sanjiv is explaining the Skyville at Dawson, Singapore



Jay is discussing the Linked Hybrid in Beijing

We also had two more, and I will add them later.....

TB Tutorial day with Akshay from Gensler 5.12.13

5th December 2013: We had a tutorial day one week before the end of term, and we feel that this is the last day when really important decisions have to be made.... after this, it's about resolving and drawing up the designs. Our special guest for the day was Akshay Sethi of Gensler.
See also: http://www.gensleron.com/cities/tag/shanghai-tower
http://www.gensler.com/uploads/documents/The_Town_Square_Reimagined_09_30_2013.pdf
Akshay is one of our alumni from Tall buildings 2009-2010, and did a tall building in 6th year - he is doing them in Gensler's now! He also worked on the London element of the Town Square Re-imagined, which is a free App on the iPhone.

We start with the Rotterdam project while Akshay is stuck in traffic on the M6! We might call it the Groene Landbouw en Blaak.


Akshay makes a start on the Singapore Sing-HKS tower, perhaps it should be SingaSport tower!


Sing-ZCC are now called Awakening Trees, and Phil is checking out the plans.


DNc and Akshay consider Awakening Trees. There is major discussion about their ground plane when we discover that they do not seem to have an entrance to Tanjong Pagar station.


Akshay and DNC are concentrating on the Rotterdam design, while Yuri is checking out the SingaSport towers.


David and Akshay consider the Groene Landbouw Rotterdam project: We advised them to rotate or rebuild the residential section. In a chain reaction of decision making, they made more sweeping changes to the whole design, almost a redesign. We would normally be worried about this, but they were able to re-configure the elements quickly.


Alex and Akshay discuss Alex's plan for the air-cleaning tower in Tianjin.


Alex continues work on the air cleaning tower, while Yuri examines the ideas in the Electronic Waste Recycling tower.


Phil looks at Giulia's School tower while Akshay checks out the Pharmaceutical farming tower. 

Another article about TB Studio

30 Nov '13: Pranali Shah, a graduate from our first vintage of MArch STB students has written an article for an Indian journal about studying in the UK, particularly about her experience with our Tall Buildings course.

Tutorials 28 Nov '13

28 Nov 2013: After last week's crit, we had a day of tutorials with just Phil and David, for the calm resolution of details. Great progress was made since last week, especially with the fifth year student group.