Wednesday 31 March 2010

MADF 2010



Last year saw MADF emerge from a desire to elevate architecture and design within the urban fabric. Groups from all parts of the architectural spectrum collaborated to help achieve the final product, a month long festival. CUBE gallery offered up their space and time as a platform for several events, including the Travel Awards. Manchester School of Architecture ran month long workshops under the title “Event Month” that resulted in a final exhibition at the close of the festival. The Manchester Society of Architects provided an exhibition of their awards that focus on congratulating the fantastic architecture that is pouring out of the city. With countless workshops and lectures from architects all of the country, MADF 2009 was the start of something spectacular.
MADF 2010 sees it’s events list boom after the success of last year. 34 events have so far been finalised, ranging from lectures like BDP’s David Ritter‘s Sustainable Design Futures where he looks at their first year inhabiting a “green” office building, to Architruk – RIBA North West’s mobile exhibition pavilion that will park up all over the city centre. Workshops and tours have also been organised, such as John Sutcliffe’s tour of Stockport and Murat Tabanliogu's Complex City – Instanbul workshop. Whatever your interest in architecture there is something available for you.
Perhaps one of the most substantial events of the festival is that of the MSA Student Travel Awards, that are to be held on Tuesday the 27th of April at 18.30 at CUBE. The event is free and looks to be an interesting night with the previous years winners presenting where their awards took them, and this years winners being announced, but to round the brilliant night off RIBA President Ruth Reed will be presenting the awards. Her presence cements the importance of student involvement in the world of architecture and emulate the benefit that traveling has on a students development in the field.

Manchester School of Architecture again this year will be running Event Month as part of MADF. Undergraduate Architecture Students from first and second year choose a workshop to take part in, which this year are created and run by BA Architecture Students at the MSA, and after a month will have their work exhibited at the closing event of MADF 2010. The workshops cover a vast spectrum of architectural styles and theory, ranging from Google Street-(Re_)-View push to map and fill in the gaps left by our virtual relationship with reality, to Biomimecry: Learning from the Eden Project, where students will not only attend a lecture by a current Grimshaw Architect, but also visit and see the Eden Project in real life, accumulating in a project influenced by the building to be displayed at the final exhibition, to be held from the 13th to the 15th of May.

Overall this year’s MADF looks to be a significant event on the architectural calendar in the UK. The collaboration between all sectors of Architecture have helped to produce an architectural festival by everyone, for everyone.

Information on all events can be found at MADF 2010’s website: http://www.madf.co.uk/index.php

All images property of MADF

Monday 29 March 2010

Unbuilt

An exciting opportunity has arisen from the presence of EASA this year in Manchester, in collaboration with Future Everything 2010 and Blank Media Collective - a fascinating group setup in 2006 to help promote and exhibit new emerging talent in all areas of the arts. Unbuilt is an exhibition to be held at EASA HQ, between the 7th and 15th of May, focusing on work by unemployed Architects.

If you are currently unemployed and work in the field of architecture Unbuilt is an opportunity for you to exhibit your work in an architectural hotspot. Blank Media Collective understand the struggles that newly qualified architects are going through and Unbuilt is a brilliant way to promote the work of new young architects.

The submission deadline is Sunday the 4th April, to enter simply email any amount of work that you feel represents your architectural portfolio. They aren't just looking for spectacular renders, they want to see sketches, paintings, diagrams, any medium as long it is from an unemployed architect. Successful entrants will be notified by April 11th.

If you have any questions with regards to Unbuilt then contact them at: exhibitions@blankmediacollective.org.

This truly is a great opportunity for new architects currently finding it difficult to find work in todays economic climate, and it's great to see a company, like Blank Media Collective, helping to promote the emerging talents of architecture.


urban motorways


"A distributor... situated within an urban area could be called an 'urban motorway'. There is no objection to this term as long as it is realised that the function of the road is to distribute traffic, and that 'urban motorways' do not, as many people seem to think, possess some magical property."
Traffic in Towns, Colin Buchanan, HMSO 1963.

The Manchester Modernist Society may disagree, Mr Buchanan.