Archinect - Canterbury School of Architecture (Joao)

HIBERNATION process - technical-procrastinative-research based excuse part II

2011-12-01T19:00:02-05:00

> thesis and project deadline

> graduation and traveling

> thesis dissemination along talks in Portugal and new job in London.

> technical and logistic issues

Could try to persuade you with these excuses, but still there were gaps in-between I could fit some investment on the already created CSA Archinect blog .

Because I left already Canterbury School of Architecture, makes a lot of sense - more than it could be expected - to proceed and drive the blog along my experience as a researcher, as an employer of a multidisciplinary architecture office and as another random citizen.

issues including streets, food, politics and cinema will perceive further blog entries.

Detroit(s) in UK, where else?

2011-03-18T16:05:48-04:00

Keeping following the issue I have been dissecting on those previous posts, which is the scope of my thesis, how are the cities facing these urban voids, what is their relevance in the urban mesh?

I am sure everybody has noticed the set of vacant places spread over those cities you know.
Have you ever mapped them? Do you have an overview of the city where you can actually measure the size of your "void city"?

As part of my research in Dover, UK, I present you guys a figure ground map of Dover and its terrain map.

I would ask you if you could do the same (you can send to my email and I add to the entry or upload them here somehow) and lets see how many Detroit scenarios we have around.

I wonder also for each case, what was the major reason for those vacancies. "De-Industrialization"?

Dover satellite view

Dover map

Dover figure ground map ( abandoned buildings and plots in red, operating buildings in black)

WILL ALSOP lecture - COVERING THE VENUE

2011-02-24T12:12:24-05:00

Boa Tarde Pessoal / Good Afternoon fellas.

As promised I will make the report-ish of the lecture, posting some comments, saying or description of the lecture while going.

Will later on publish some pictures too.

Concerning a more complex media, I am still figuring out the possibility to get the video of the lecture. Will let you know asap.

Now are coming the welcoming drinks...then the lecture ;)

drinks = wine... perfect

"the bar" + "the bookshop"

"Working in the Dark" - WILL ALSOP 6PM @ CSA:

- First intro about a small ideas competition at uni, sorry W. Alsop is busy with the pre-lecture event yet..

- Allan Atlee (director of the architecture faculty) makes a brief intro about W. Alsop

- "art and architecture is the same, the only thing I want to say about this" W. Alsop

- "I tell my students, I am not here to teach anything, I can only talk to you about my work, my aims and some notes"
If you want to stand out, "you have to be naughty"

- He runs a set of images regar...

WILL ALSOP at UCA tomorrow 24TH FEB 6PM

2011-02-23T09:40:51-05:00

‘WORKING IN THE DARK’ is the subject WILL ALSOP will have as a guideline to his next lecture at our university and I will make the "live" cover of it.

TOMORROW, 24th Feb at 6PM

All invited to come, it's FREE :) (drinks at the start are included) !!

Will Alsop is one of the UK’s most prominent architects and a recipient of the Stirling Prize who has applied his bold and colorful approach to award-winning projects internationally across all sectors.

I will keep you updated
Any info just ask, posting a comment here

PS: Link to the lecture promotion : http://cantarch.com/?p=1150

PS.1: I announce here the next lectures that will take place at the same venue, our university, Canterbury School of Architecture:

SCARES AND SQUARES II, by Dr JONATHAN CHARLEY, University of Strathclyde 6pm 10th March 2011, Cragg Lecture Theatre, CSA

PROJECTS, by ANTHONY HUDSON from HUDSON ARCHITECTS, 6PM 17th March, Cragg Lecture Theatre, CSA

KEEp It or KNOCk It DOWn?

2011-02-03T11:21:17-05:00

The problem is simple:

I present here a building which has a short life span...

Many people (locals) want to make it disappear, placing the so called Tesco(r) urbanism.

KNOCK IT DOWN? KEEP IT? (yeah, how so?)

I ask you guys, what do you think about the building and what should happen, be sharp as I don't provide much information about it.
Please just comment here, based on what you see (addressed is a brief description of the building, contextualizing on the site and on these days).

Burlington tower, designed to be a hotel and a shopping mall in the 60’s, the previously office building has been abandoned for over nine years, waiting for the supposed sentence for its demolition. With a typical design of the international style, its structure and composition lies on a simple concrete struc- ture of slabs and columns, repeated along the floors. Has no influences from its context, having no roots that save this building to the surroundings.
Ultimately the site and a large a...

Thesis part I . Upcoming season of Thesis II after the break

2011-02-01T00:13:31-05:00

Shame on me, more than one month to post an entry. I know.

If you guys run through the short and humble line of entries, you figure out there is a logical purpose.
After three weeks of confinement to work for a competition, thesis and a dissertation, I presently consider myself again, a citizen of the world that recognizes the wide variety of resources available nearby. There are more food beyond pizza, cereal and crackers. After all, there's a whole world beyond the front door of the house.

Completed the portfolio, is mutual 5th grade, a sense of freedom, disguise of the amount of work that day after day, we try to hide / forget and which is inevitable.

The thesis here is taken seriously. Not that we do nothing more than a thesis. The case here is different, the thesis is the epicenter. Everything deployed turns out into a research branch that complements the research and thesis.
Who says that a thesis has to have 200 pages and 40,000 words? bullshit
What really matters is th...

Christmas Holidays and the Productive Distraction

2010-12-16T17:59:25-05:00

Fresher at archinect blog project, I'm currently crossing one of the worse critical euphoric and stressful season of a common architecture student. Anyway, ORGANIZATION and the so called "PRODUCTIVE DISTRACTION".

Currently in my last year of Grad. Dip. Architecture, thesis is the most heard and spoken word ever.
Anyway, is going well. 349 things to do until the end of January. It's fine, more than one month to do it.
Problem? yes, as in the middle we have the celebration of the consumerism and the great and amazing delicatessen - food - and the new year's eve. A few would say "and?"...work,"have a break to eat the turkey" and comeback to work. "Stop working to drink the champagne at midnight" and return.
Well, for someone whose hometown is more than 2000km from university, it implies to get a return flight trip. Trying to pretend that nothing changes is purely waist of time.
Anyway, you can't complain when you are working and you don't need to worry about doing lunch/dinner, t...