Our pick of the week is a panel discussion entitled Constraints & Creativity: Is Red Tape the Enemy of Architecture? on Tuesday 5 March. Matching our current interests in the seams between bureaucratic decision making and bottom-up resourcefulness, whether formalised or not, the tension between regulatory constraints and creative freedoms will be amply debated by a panel including:
- Liam Ross – Dept of Architecture, Edinburgh University
- Tom Mullarkey – Chief Executive, Royal Society for Prevention of Accidents
- Piers Gough – CZWG
- Alex Ely – mæ architects
- Tim Gill – Author of No Fear. Researcher on risk & childhood
- Finn Williams – Common Office/Deputy Team Leader Placemaking, LB Croydon
The discussion will be chaired by Alastair Donald of the British Council.
Venice Takeaway: Ideas to Change British Architecture at the RIBA is the restaging of the British Pavilion at last year’s Venice Biennale of Architecture, co-curated by Vicky Richardson (British Council – and former editor of Blueprint!) and Vanessa Norwood (Architectural Association). They invited 10 architectural practitioners or groups to ‘explore’ the globe, seeking innovative solutions to architectural problems back in Blighty. At the Biennale itself, the exhibition was perhaps too dense in material to fully appreciate, but the current restaging – amply augmented by a programme of lectures, discussions and debates – allows for the opportunity to peruse the findings without the distractions of several hundred other exhibitors.
Architects Liam Ross and Tolulope Onabolu travelled to Lagos, Nigeria to reframe the discussion around the UK’s oft-bemoaned building standards & regulations, which many claim stifle creativity and innovation in design. Their observations on the vastly different legislative and spatial conditions of Lagos offer an alternative critique of regulation through an examination of risk, personal responsibility and sovereignty.
Other explorers include Elias Redstone, who investigated the Fideicomiso development model in Argentian; Aberrant Architecture, looking at Niemeyer’s CIEP school model in Brazil; Darryl Chen’s New Socialist Village from China, resembling our homegrown Localism Act to surprising degrees, and much more. We will be reporting for several collateral events here over the next few weeks; for more information you can watch this film, or do check out the Venice Takeaway website.
www.architecture.com (Event page + booking)
