Tue 11 June – Mace Construction

9:30am
At UCL Classroom. Presentation by Adrian Thomson, Assoc. Director at Mace, construction project manager of The Shard.

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Mon 10 June – Foster + Partners

5:00pm
Office visit to Foster + Partners. Presentations by SMG Specialist Modeling Group directors, followed by a tour of the modeling / fabrication shop.

– Xavier De Kastelier: SMG recent projects and design methods, digital tools.

– Irene Gallou: Design and construction of Masdar City , the first zero-carbon city in the world.

Mon 3 June – Arup: King’s Cross Western Concourse

9:30am
Office visit to Arup. Presentation on King’s Cross Western Concourse.
Followed by a guided tour by project engineer Nick Bailes.

Thu 5 June – Lawrence Friesen

9:30am
At our UCL classroom.
Lawrence Friesen of GenGeo, presented a 2 hour discussion about:
– Crafting digital information to digital form.
– History of form-finding and evolution to digital tools.
– Digital Design > Parametric Design > Performative Computational Design.
– Scripting tools and new material fabrication technologies.

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Suggested reading.

Wed 5 June – Arup Sustainability + Heatherwick Studio

9:30am
Office visit to Arup Sustainability group.

– Alistair Guthrie (group director): Sustainability theory, process, projects.

– Anna Pavan: The Copper Box (2012 Olympics).

6:30pm
Office visit to Heatherwick Studio.
Peter Ayres presented a survey of projects by Heatherwick Studio, and led us thru the offices and workshop.
Video of Thomas Heatherwick describing recent projects:

Tue 4 June – Expedition Engineering + Thames Cable Car

9:30am

Office visit at Expedition Engineering.
Presentations:
– Andrew Wier: Current projects + Velodrome and Thames Cable Car.

– Pete Winslow: Biomemetic design – office project.

– Chris Mills: Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre, Ferrocement Solar Canopy.

– Oliver Broadbent: Think Up and Expedition Workshed.

“Expedition Workshed is a collection of high-impact online tools to support the teaching of civil and structural engineering.”

Also see Expedition Workshed video list.

1:30pm
Trip to Thames Cable Car, via Millenium Dome and an impromptu tour of Ravensbourne college, guided by architecture students.

Mon 3 June – Classroom + Zaha Hadid Architects

9:30am
Introductions to firms and people for this coming week.
Status check on research topics, mentors and procedure.

1:30pm
Visit to offices of Zaha Hadid Architects.
Bidisha Sinha presented an overview of current projects with discussion about design methods and technologies.
Video of a recent lecture by Zaha Hadid at the GSD, Harvard:

Sun 2 June – Olympic Park visit

1:30pm
As an extra event, we all decided to visit the Olympic Park together.
Most of the park is shut down as they re-work the landscape and buildings from Olympic mode to Legacy (long-term) mode.
The only access was a trip up the Orbit tower, designed by Anish Kapoor, engineered by Daniel Bosia and Cecil Balmond (Arup AGU project).
Good views of the Stadium, Velodrome, and Aquatics Centre. An Anish Kapoor reflecting wall inside the tower transfixed us, and wall-mounted displays about the sustainable strategies driving the Olympic Park development were very informative.

Fri 31 May – Walking tour

2:30pm
As a class, we divided up a list of 100 London contemporary buildings, mapped their locations on a shared GoogleMap, and developed pop-up tabs for each.
See shared map at this link:
http://goo.gl/maps/2C2EG (click on GREEN tags with BLACK dots).

All this mapping in the first few days of the program, so that we could find our way to important contemporary landmarks. These photos are from our first walking tour, utilizing our new map. On our route, we would often stumble across wonderful examples of historical styles as well.

Fri 31 May – AKT Engineering

9:30am
Presentation at AKT II Engineering. Daniel Bosia discussing ‘Crafting Networks’ – utilization of parametric and performative computer design methods.
Video of Daniel Bosia presenting lecture ‘Crafting Networks’ at ETH Zurich: