Canvassing the Concept (2022)

Processes of Architectural and Spatial Design Development

May 3, 2022

2022 UAUIM Talks Canvassing the Concept.pdf

As creatives, we rely on design process to develop concepts into projects. We translate ideas into images - describe images as ideas - and repeat the sequence until boundaries between images and ideas are blurred. During such process some questions receive answers while others rise anew. So how can we keep a confident attitude towards the balance between known and unknown? How can we innovate and simultaneously meet demanding brief requirements?

This year Canvassing the Concept, organised by the “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urban Planning, will host eight young architects and designers who will share different approaches to design process, and how they balanced problem- solving and experimentation in recent projects.

Coordinator: prof. PhD. Arch. Georgică Mitrache.

“Lee kept going on about, ‘Oh, I’m gonna
have this robot, this model.’ ”
McQueen, 2018

The event will be divided into four sessions that will take place on Wednesday and Friday at 15.00 CET+1, Bucharest. Each session will include two 30-minute talks followed by a 15-miunte Q&A forum. Sessions will be moderated by Matei Mitrache and recorded for internal academic use.

Performative Dimensions of Time and Light
Speakers: Samuel Coulton, Flavian Berar
Time: Wednesday, 11 May 2022, 15.00 - 16.15 CET+1, Bucharest
https://ucl.zoom.us/j/99726202979

Celebration of Belonging and Cultural Heritage
Speakers: Christina Grytten, Pui Quan Choi
Time: Friday, 13 May 2022, 15.00 - 16.15 CET+1, Bucharest
https://ucl.zoom.us/j/98259840496

The Generative Potential of Context
Speakers: Rhys Waring, Alan Ma
Time: Wednesday, 18 May 2022, 15.00 - 16.15 CET+1, Bucharest
https://ucl.zoom.us/j/99018343376

Embracing the Unexpected in the Process of Making
Speakers: Karen Ko, Demetris Ktorides
Time: Friday, 20 May 2022, 15.00 - 16.15 CET+1, Bucharest
https://ucl.zoom.us/j/97909622494

“but then, the night before the show, the
robot did turn up, and we didn’t have a
to go with the robot.”
McQueen, 2018

Performative Dimensions of Time and Light

Wednesday, 11 May 2022
15.00 – 16.15 CET+1, Bucharest
13.00 – 14.15 CET-1, London

https://ucl.zoom.us/j/99726202979
Meeting ID: 997 2620 2979
Samuel Colton

A Place to Die, A Place to Dance

15.00 – 15.30
Samuel Coulton

Sam is an architectural and set designer based in London, working for Block9 & SWEAR Studio. He is also a Lecturer at the Bartlett, UCL, where he graduated and was awarded the RIBA Wren Scholarship, the Sir Banister Fletcher Medal, and a RIBA Silver Medal commendation. He will explore projects from academia and practice drawing upon key references from modern artists and experiences gathered from his time working in Set and Production design for some of Europe’s largest live and recorded music events and festivals. Specifically, exploring some of the spatial conditions around human experiences of death and dancing.

Flavian Berar

Time-based Storytelling

15.30 – 16.00
Flavian Berar

Flavian Berar is an artist, architect and filmmaker based in London, UK. He graduated from The Bartlett in 2019 with Distinction for his storytelling film Engines of Creation, later in 2021 disrupting commercials on iconic media screens in London, Seoul and Tokyo. He has worked on international projects of set design and architecture, in the studios of Es Devlin, WilkinsonEyre and Foster+Partners. Within his filmic work, time becomes the 4th dimension unlocking new spatial and material realities. His intuition based approach stays faithful to the lived experience, humanising the treatment of themes such as identity and climate change.

Q&A

16.00 – 16.15

“We went under the table and pulled all
these jewels out and he was like
‘Hey, there’s the dress.‘”
McQueen, 2018

Celebration of Belonging and Cultural Heritage

Friday, 13 May 2022
15.00 – 16.15 CET+1, Bucharest
13.00 – 14.15 CET-1, London

https://ucl.zoom.us/j/98259840496
Meeting ID: 982 5984 0496
Christina Grytten

Form-finding and Methods of Cultural Integration

15.00 – 15.30
Christina Grytten

Christina is a London based Designer/ Architect working at Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). She graduated her masters from The Bartlett School of Architecture in 2020. Alongside her professional work Christina is involved in teaching, design workshops and enjoys creating computational art. Being part of a global architecture studio allowed Christina to engage with projects across the world - engaging with different cultures, social and environmental contexts. She developed an approach to architecture that roots itself in the understanding of culture, vernacular architecture and nature as a way of form finding and driving the design process.

Pui Quan Choi

A Culture of Sharing

15.30 – 16.00
Pui Quan Choi

Pui Quan Choi is an Architect and Illustrator based in London. She studied at the Bartlett School of Architecture and the Architectural Association. She is now working at Hawkins\Brown on a variety of projects and organises the mentoring programmes at the practice with a keen interest in how we can broaden access into the profession. She is particularly interested in thinking and designing across multiple scales as a method of engaging with the ever-changing cultural conditions we find ourselves practicing in and will explore this through both academic and personal projects.

Q&A

16.00 – 16.15

“He’s directing these robots like they’re
actors and, consequently, you end up with
this incredible choreography.”
McQueen, 2018

The Generative Potential of Context

Wednesday, 18 May 2022
15.00 – 16.15 CET+1, Bucharest
13.00 – 14.15 CET-1, London

https://ucl.zoom.us/j/99018343376
Meeting ID: 990 1834 3376
Rhys Waring

Context & Constraint

15.00 – 15.30
Rhys Waring

Rhys is an architectural designer working in London, on global commercial projects, contrasting with his previous experience in heritage and conservation. His talk will follow a personal design journey, from the strict confines of some of England’s most sensitive heritage environments, and the design opportunities sparked by this limitation, through to the unrestrained creative freedom of working on futuristic visions for sites devoid of context or restraint in the Middle East. Tying the two extremes together will be the New Lyonnesse, a proposal for a sea-faring utopian city amongst the imagined context of the decaying Isles of Scilly.

Alan Ma

Coded Reality

15.30 – 16.00
Alan Ma

Alan is an Architect based in London, he graduated from The Bartlett in 2019 and has since been working at KPF. He has also worked with designers and artists to create exhibition spaces, and temporary installations. Backed by a keen interest in data driven architecture, the presentation will explore perverse image analysis techniques and its applications in the urban environment, it will aim to test their ability to create new digitally based, image generated architectural spectacles. The talk will expand on his diploma project The Ruin in the Sky which explores the process of transforming digital imagery into 21st century ruins across the city of Athens.

Q&A

16.00 – 16.15

“You had Shalom Harlow there and these
two robots going round. And the robots
looked like they had a mind of their own.”
McQueen, 2018

Embracing the Unexpected in the Process of Making

Friday, 20 May 2022
15.00 – 16.15 CET+1, Bucharest
13.00 – 14.15 CET-1, London

https://ucl.zoom.us/j/97909622494
Meeting ID: 979 0962 2494
Karen Ko

Plan Uncertainty

15.00 – 15.30
Karen Ko

Karen is an architectural designer, ceramicist, and maker based in London, currently working in the private residential & hospitality sectors with Michaelis Boyd Associates. She is passionate in exploring design ideas through making, a process that encourages collaboration with the subject matter, be it with the material, the people, the habitat or beyond. This collaborative approach encourages chances & uncertainty; cherishes the unforeseen development & reaction. She will expand on this methodology primarily through working with clay: a versatile material that evolves into myriad possibilities while responding to its ambient condition.

Demetris Ktorides

Fabricating Ideas

15.30 – 16.00
Demetris Ktorides

Demetris is an architect based in Cyprus, working at ABR - alternative brains rule and has co-founded cloudy.works and maker.space - a digital capturing studio and an analogue creative hub. He graduated from the Bartlett School of Architecture in 2018 and has since worked on a variety of design + built projects. Through examples of such works, he will explore how the role of the architect has the capacity to shift towards having an active role in making, and in turn, how this shift might generate unexpected architectural productions and ideas.

Q&A

16.00 – 16.15