Archinect - News

More accusations of bullying at The Bartlett plague UCL ahead of leadership transition

2022-08-09T13:37:00-04:00

Weeks before its next Director steps into office, another faculty at UCL’s Bartlett School of Architecture has fallen into scandal after The Guardian recently leaked new accusations of bullying and harassment from within the School of Sustainable Construction.

A group of nine school faculty members was reportedly the signatories of the damning letter, which includes accusations of nepotism in addition to further complaints about the same kinds of harassment, age-based discrimination, racism, bullying of older staffers, and other tactics that have embroiled The Bartlett since last summer.

“We have seen our own academic careers and lives and those of our colleagues destroyed through bullying, harassment and other predatory practices and know that any effort to raise the issues of misconduct or fraudulent behaviour would lead to retaliation endangering our own careers and lives,” a portion of their statement reads.

Earlier on Archinect: UCL issues an apology and published report on the...

Staffing shortages lead to a suspension of summer school activities at the Bartlett

2022-06-30T12:10:00-04:00

Weeks after issuing a public apology related to an independent investigation into decades of misconduct by its faculty and staff, the Bartlett School of Architecture has announced the cancellation of its summer school program owing to last-minute staffing shortages.

The Architects’ Journal is reporting the decision to halt instruction for certain summer classes as it grapples with the fallout of the investigation, which this month led to the suspension of several individuals named in the investigation. UCL had promised more actions would quickly follow at the time.

A five-day course for students aged 16–18 was supposedly called off as full refunds have been issued to the students who enrolled prior to the July 4th start date. HomeGrown Plus, a nonprofit aimed at increasing diversity in the field of architecture, said it was disappointed by the news, which meant that its 10-student opportunity program would also have to be canceled.

Previously: Former students complain of racism and ...

UCL issues an apology and published report on the decades-long investigation of misconduct at the Bartlett School of Architecture

2022-06-09T19:09:00-04:00

A resolution has been provided in the saga at the UCL Bartlett School of Architecture that has made waves in the press since first coming to light last year.

The institution has now issued a formal apology in response to the independent investigation into educational practices and environment that permeated at the school for decades.

UCL says it is also in receipt of the recommendations for improvement put forth in a recent investigative report created by independent consultancy Howlett Brown using a survey of more than 300 former faculty and students. As was expected based on previous reporting of first-hand accounts, the respondents in their survey detailed a frightening and toxic culture of abuse, racism, bullying, and even sexual harassment occurring at every level. Accordingly, the school has announced it will be removing several faculty members from student-facing administrative duties in addition to setting up a new working group that will help further adapt the recommended ...

The Bartlett names Amy Kulper as its next Director

2022-03-30T12:27:00-04:00

A new face will lead one of the UK’s most prestigious design institutions after the announcement that RISD professor Amy Kulper will be the next Director of University College London’s The Bartlett School of Architecture.

Kulper is presently the head of the Architecture department at RISD and has held numerous teaching positions throughout her career including recent stops at UCLA, SCI-Arc, and the University of Cambridge.

Kulper's extensive writing and research primarily focuses on the intersection of history, theory, and design. Her work as an academic has earned her the University of Michigan’s Donna M. Salzer Award for teaching excellence and recently included the oversight of the newly-created combined 4+2 program between Brown and RISD.

Earlier on Archinect: The Bartlett launches new diversity-focused scholarship program

As a critic and curator, she has been published several times in Log, The Architectural Review, Candide, and Architecture and Culture. Her exhibitions have be...

Meet Google's 2019 R+D for the Built Environment Fellows

2019-10-04T13:44:00-04:00

Google's Architect-In-Residence and Head of R+D for the Built Environment, Michelle Kaufmann, will help lead the first ever 2019 fellowship cohort. After releasing an open call for fellowship applications earlier this year, four fellows have been chosen to help spearhead Google's newest branch of research, design, and development.

During the fellowship, participants will focus on discovering new ways to accelerate design ideas for the built environment. The paid, six-month design fellowship will enable candidates to test ideas in areas like building material science, affordable housing, and AI/machine learning to name a few.

Each candidate was chosen for their expertise and diverse backgrounds. Read more about Google's pioneering fellows below. *Note: Descriptions are provided by Google R+D for the Built Environment

Marta Nowak - Founding Principle of AN.ONYMOUS
As a faculty member at UCLA Architecture and Urban Design Department she focuses on the relationship between human body an...

Postwar floating walkways finding a use in modern day London

2018-10-03T12:32:00-04:00

They were planned after the second world war to whisk people above car-choked streets in the financial district, but remained unpopular and half-built. Now, pedestrian walkways are being reimagined for a 21st-century city

The "pedway" made its structural debut as a solution to providing a walkable, streamlined path for pedestrians in London's car stricken streets. However, what was devised as a plan to create an efficient walkway system, turned into an under appreciated and underwhelming concept.

Examples of early pedway systems can be referenced from London's financial centre in the late 1940's. Critiques of the pedway system and its feasibility has been dissected in the documentary, Elevating London, where UCL professor of planning Michael Hebbert discusses the pedway's progression over the years.

However, despite it's enigmatic evolution, architecture firms like Make Architects are finding ways to resurrect these floating walkway systems. Their most recent project on The London Wall Place aims to transform pedways in to playful and functional path way.

How dance could help engineers design new solutions for urban mobility

2017-12-18T14:47:00-05:00

The value of all this for engineering is currently hypothetical. But what if transport engineers were to improvise design solutions and get instant feedback about how they would work from their own embodied experience? What if they could model designs at full scale in the way choreographers experiment with groups of dancers? What if they designed for emotional as well as functional effects?

UCL Urban Design and Culture Researcher John Bingham-Hall writes about how choreography techniques can potentially be used by engineers in designing solutions for better city-planning and mobility.

“We need new approaches in order to help engineers create the radical changes needed to make it healthier, more enjoyable, and less environmentally damaging to move around cities. And my colleagues and I think that dance might hold some of the answers,” Bingham-Hall writes.

The Norman Foster Foundation announces a program of education initiatives

2017-07-12T14:40:00-04:00

Based in Madrid and operating globally, The Norman Foster Foundation is a non-profit promoting holistic education and interdisciplinary thinking and research.

Followed from the Future is Now forum held in Madrid's Royal Theater on the 1st of June, Mayor of Madrid and Lord Foster brought together leading figures in the fields of science, design, architecture, politics, art, economics and history, to a capacity audience of 2,000 and 75,000 online viewers.

With the support of the Rolex Institute, the Foundation will host week-long events in its Madrid Headquarters in November 2017. Grants will be awarded to ten students from around the world for a series of talks, think tanks and workshops led by key individuals, including Norman Foster, on issues such as the city, infrastructure, mobility and technology.

The Norman Foster Foundation. Image courtesy of the NFF

In October 2017 the Foundation will feature an exhibit titled Common Futures in Madrid's Espacio Fundacion Telefonica. Create...

This week's picks for London architecture and design events

2017-02-06T14:18:00-05:00

This week, the focus is on the people we design for, in both a literal and figurative context; from a talk explicitly on the relationship between architect and the public, to the consideration of the concept of 'home'. Inhabitants and the public have certainly been a key focus for designers in recent years, and with the internet facilitating increasing feedback and conversation on projects, it is interesting to see this take centre stage through exhibitions and talks.

Check back regularly to keep up to date with London's latest happenings and our weekly recommendations!

Architecture and Citizenship: Who are we designing for? | 13 February

Image: Museum of Architecture

The Museum of Architecture continues it's theme of looking at not only what we design, but who we design for, in this talk about the relationships between architects and the public. Considering both the scale of the public users for any given project, the discussion will explore individual, family, community, city, region...

Step inside The Bartlett's new central London HQ, designed by Hawkins\Brown

2016-12-16T20:09:00-05:00

After calling the Wates House their home since the 1970s, the UCL Bartlett School of Architecture celebrated the official opening of its newly refurbished headquarters today on 22 Gordon Street in Bloomsbury. Collaborating with the Bartlett and UCL Estates, architect Hawkins\Brown doubled the size of the existing building to 8,500 square meters.

Preserving some of the original fabric of the old Wates House and using the existing structural concrete frame, the new “flexible and robust” building now includes a public gallery and provides more open working space for the school's 1,000 students and staff.

Hawkins\Brown added a fifth and sixth floor, and a main spiraling stairway within a full-height atrium. The renovation also includes double-height glazing at ground level and a new prominent entrance to create a more inviting building in its city-center location.

“A large number of the Hawkins\Brown team are alumni of the Bartlett and have fond memories of the old Wates House,” Hawkins\B...

Get Lectured: The Bartlett, Fall '16

2016-10-14T14:24:00-04:00

Gearing up for another eventful school year this fall? Archinect's Get Lectured is back in session. Get Lectured is an ongoing series where we feature a school's lecture series—and their snazzy posters—for the current term. Check back frequently to keep track of any upcoming lectures you don't want to miss. Mark those calendars!

Want to share your school's lecture series? Send us your school's lecture series poster and details to connect@archinect.com.

Have a look at some of the events that are coming up at the Bartlett School of Architecture's 2016-17 International Lecture Series.

Oct 19
Jonathan Hill / The Bartlett

Oct 26
Thom Mayne / Morphosis

Nov 2
Peggy Deamer / Yale University

Nov 10
Nicholas de Monchaux / UC Berkeley

Nov 16
Charles Holland / Ordinary Architecture

Nov 23
Murray Fraser / The Bartlett

Nov 30
Nigel Coates

Dec 8
Dan Hill + Joseph Grima / City of Sound & Space Caviar

Dec 14
Felicity Scott / Columbia University

Lectures begin at 6:30 p.m. For further event info and updates, visit bartle...

UCL unleashes an autonomous, roving 'garden sphere' for London

2016-10-05T13:25:00-04:00

Therefore, our general theme and approach in this set of projects is that plants should become part of our society as well as self-reliant, and be given the ability to autonomously interact and walk with us. [...] The prototype is seen as a larger scale architectural improvement. With the reduction of gardens as years pass on, the design represents a depleted Earth as it is regenerating and given new life.

Watch the making of the "garden sphere", Hortum Machina, B below:

First unveiled in April of this year, the Hortum Machina, B project is designed by architects William Victor Camilleri and Danilo Sampaio at the UCL's Bartlett. Covered in GCR, the "autonomy" is derived from the plants inside the sphere: "although flora lack nervous systems 'they can, much like animals, become electro-chemically stimulated by (their) environment'.

The designers have wired these botanical reflexes into the control-loop of the sphere’s 'autonomous robotic ecosystem', thereby allowing for autonomous travel. In fact, the plants are able to move the exoskeleton 'collectively and democratically'."

Related on Archinect:

reEarth: Hortum machina, B goes for a walk

2016-04-22T14:20:00-04:00

Harnessing the collective intelligence of plant behaviour, the reEarth project explores new forms of bio-cooperative interaction between people and nature, within the built environment. Echoing the architecture of Buckminster Fuller, the geodesic sphere, is both exoskeleton and ecological iconography. Its core of twelve garden modules, each carrying native British species on outwardly-extending linear actuators allow the structure to become mobile by shifting its centre-of-gravity.

Find relating articles here:

UCL researchers present a new kind of self-cleaning nano-engineered window

2016-01-21T17:46:00-05:00

Researchers at University College London (UCL) claim that a “revolutionary” new type of window could cut cleaning costs in tall buildings and reduce heating bills by up to 40% thanks to a new combination of nano-scale engineering inspired by the eyes of moths, and thermochromic coating. The prototype, revealed today, has conical nanostructures engraved on its surface that trap air and prevent all but a tiny amount of water coming into actual contact with the glass.

"The lead UCL researcher said this would be a big draw for high-rise building owners, since the cost of cleaning the windows surpasses the cost of installing them after the first five years."