Love Architecture...at the seaside

Arm yourself with bucket and spade and join us for a fun packed afternoon creating sandcastles with an architectural theme!

Come along to Mablethorpe beach on Saturday 22nd June for a sandcastle-building competition with an architectural theme, organised by RIBA East Midlands, as part of the Love Architecture week. Join the fun and enter your sandcastle for prizes in a range of categories:

Tallest Sand Structure

Most Ambitious Scheme

Best Overall Scheme

People's choice

***** Entry is FREE *****

- There are some fantastic prizes to be won!

- Please bring your own buckets, spades and tools.

- Competition is open from 12 noon until 4pm when prize giving will take place.

To register, please email: riba.eastmidlands@riba.org or call 01522 837480. All children must be accompanied by an adult.

For more information on the competition or the Love Architecture Festival 2013 and events in your area please visit www.lovearchitecture.org

Exhibition Designers of the future

Another sneak preview of the Degree Shows, this time a look at the work of BA (Hons) Design for Exhibition and Museums.

A particularly bold design comes from Eddy Rigby with his Pop goes the Easel exhibition which takes a fresh look at the way in which art galleries display pop art.  To see Edward's sketch books and project sheets, they are cleverly stored in the back of the mini, which visitors can open to access.

James Thomas, who has been featured on this blog many times before, both for his Nimlok design, where he came 2nd, and for his exhibition design for the Bardney Stones, has come up with another two amazing exhibition designs.

His major project is an exhibition to celebrate the 50 years of the Rolling Stones.  His use of the instantly recognizable Stones logo, and the strong colours, really make his exhibition display stand out.

James' option project concentrates on the Dambusters, which is highly topical at the moment with the recent 70th anniversary.  It is particularly pertinent for us here in Lincoln with so many RAF bases in the county.

Dutch student Nikki van Bokhoven joined DEM in the final year from a Graphic Design background, and has proved also to have a flair for exhibition design. Coldpress is an UK based company which specialises in fruity drinks. Nikki's stand design is for the upcoming Food and Drink Expo at the Birmingham NEC in 2014.

Nikki tells me that the concept comes from tree forms, but in the design, they are more abstract, taking inspiration from the company's product, specifically the shape of the bottom of their bottle.

With the use of lighting technology within the stand, it gives the appearance of trees blooming. The lighting can be set to reflect the colours of the different seasons.

The above comments are those of the writer of this blog as an observer, and do not form part of the academic appraisal.

Behind the scenes look at preparation for the Degree Shows

The 2013 Degree Shows open to private guests tomorrow evening, and to the general public on Saturday 1 June.  As we speak there is still a lot of activity going in the studios, to get the exhibitions ready in time.

Earlier today I visited the studios of our Masters of Architecture Part 2 students, who were very busy trying to clear up.

and applying the final coats of paint to the plinths

I hope they manage to get the floor cleaned up in time!

New landscaping for the University of Lincoln Brayford campus

The University of Lincoln is developing a landscaping strategy for the whole Brayford Pool campus which will be implemented in stages over the next couple of years, starting this coming summer. The areas for which designs have been agreed are

Library Square which is the area between the Library, Students Union, and Lincoln Performing Arts Centre [LPAC]

The Delph Pond which is the water feature in front of the Architecture building and which is increasinly becoming a haven for wildlife

The River Witham frontage which runs alongside the Engine Shed and the Library

The eastern approach along the edge of the Brayford Pool, leading to the Main building

The north east quadrant around the Main Building and MHT Building

Interior Designer talks about life after University

Sophie Austin graduated from BA (Hons) Interior Architecture and Design some 5 years ago. Since then she has been involved in a number of interesting projects, some of which she would like to share with you.  She currently works at the RIBA chartered practice place: architecture here in Lincoln.  The following are Sophie's own words.

"Place: architecture was approached to submit a competition proposal for a memorial and interpretation centre in Lincoln to honour the aircrew that lost their lives as part of Bomber Command in WW2. A national memorial for Bomber Command opened in June 2012 in Green Park, London to honour the 55,573 Bomber Command crew who lost their lives. Some 25,000 of those losses took flight from a Lincolnshire airbase and it is the vision of the Lincolnshire Bomber Command Memorial Trust that a memorial be sited within the County to recognise those who took their last steps on Lincolnshire soil.

"As a local practice it has been quite an honour to put forward a proposal for such a significant scheme and it was a full design team effort to develop the brief from initial concept design through to the final presentation. As a scheme we focused primarily on links to aviation in both an overt and covert manner, building layers of storytelling into the scheme to enable generations to engage and appreciate in the sacrifices made. The competition has received both local and national press, with the successful design due to be announced later in May 2013. 

"On a personal level I have worked within the practice for five years since graduating from the BA (Hons) Interior Design course at the University of Lincoln. Within that time I have been involved with a multitude of projects from residential developments through to educational and care facilities, seeing many of these develop from initial sketches through to occupied buildings. One of the greatest highlights of my time in industry so far is seeing a project come together on site that started off as a sketch on a piece of paper. Furthermore, it is seeing how those spaces created are used by their inhabitants, and hearing from the clients how they enjoy that space and what it brings to them. It is a continual learning curve as a designer seeing how people interact with the spaces you create. 

"Coming from an interiors background and working within an architectural practice has certainly benefited how a design brief is approached. Within an architectural practice there is a variance in approach to a design project, an Interiors graduate can often offer a freer thinking approach and look at a brief from a different perspective. The strong ability to draw and sketch is always welcomed within a practice particularly at those early concept stages. 

"If I was to pass on any words of wisdom when it comes to life after university it would be to not ‘put yourself in a box’, and by this I mean do not be scared to apply for jobs that are not solely Interior Design based. From my experience, and my time on the course, I came away as a Designer. I developed the skills required to take a brief, explore it and creatively develop it into a design with reasoning and conviction. This is your skill; designing.  Once in industry you can begin to specialise further and build your technical knowledge. Working within an architectural practice I have undertaken projects that look solely at the interior, at the building as a whole, at landscaping design and at times the wider urban environment and it is those design skills I developed and still am developing that enable me to resolve such briefs.

On an additional note, particularly with regard to interviews my advice would be to have the confidence and the ability to discuss your work, your thoughts and your understanding towards design. Communication is key both visually and verbally, the ability to communicate your design work is paramount. It’s what you do at University to your tutors and peers, at interview to your potential employer and ultimately in industry to your client".

Thanks to Sophie for sharing her experiences with us, and for providing us with the above visuals.

Gold Medal at RHS Chelsea Flower Show for Lincoln

The Digital Capabilities garden, which responds to live Twitter activity, has won Gold at the RHS Chelsea Flower show in the Fresh Garden Category.

This is the first time the University of Lincoln has entered a show garden at Chelsea, which is no mean feat given that the University does not have a horticulture department.  Created by academics from 3 different departments and award-winning designers Harfleet & Harfleet, the garden is divided diagonally by an autonomous-panelled screen which separates the planting of two distinct zones.

Celebrity visitors to the garden include Jack Dee and Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen

A tapestry of familiar plants and foliage greets visitors, with the partially obscured exotic planting behind the partition providing a dramatic contrast. The panelled screen responds in real-time to the ‘buzz’ of excitement about RHS Chelsea Flower Show, as measured by activity on Twitter using the #rhschelsea tag, with the inner depths of the garden only being seen when public excitement is at its peaks.

Tom Harfleet tweeting #rhschelsea with Architecture senior lecturers Barbara Griffin and Richard Wright.

The project is a cross-disciplinary collaboration between academics from the University of Lincoln’s School of Computer Science, School of Psychology and School of Architecture who are all involved in the development of the installation.

There has been much interest shown in the digital garden, both by visitors and the press alike. Celebrity visitors to the garden yesterday included Kim Wilde (above), Ringo Starr, Deborah Meaden, Davina Mccall, and even Trinny of Trinny and Susannah fame (below).  Kim spoke to BBC Look North, congratulating the team on designing an interactive and innovative garden, exactly what a Fresh Garden should be about.

Even the Queen was in the vicinity whilst the Duke of Edinburgh looked on bemused at the interactive garden!

To get involved with the garden, go to the project’s website or follow the garden on Twitter @digcapabilities or tweet using #rhschelsea to get that garden opening.

RHS Chelsea 2013 is on BBC2 8-9 pm each evening this week.

Interactive show garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show

Architects and Lincoln School of Architecture tutors Richard M Wright and Barbara Griffin were both approached earlier this year to join the team for the Digital Capabilities project. Their initial role was to facilitate the construction of the project, namely to construct an innovative show garden for this year's RHS Chelsea Flower Show in London later this month, which is connected to the internet and responds to online activity.

The architects quickly entered into a dynamic collaborative design relationship with other areas of the University: computer scientists, interactive designers, garden designers and even the Head of the School of Psychology, have all been intrinsic to the success of this project.  Right from the initial proposals, this multidisciplinary team generated a new garden design based loosely around the original conceptual underpinnings, and students from the School's Master of Architecture students, together with University technicians, have worked incredibly hard to construct the garden, spending many evenings in the Architecture workshop, in order to meet the tight deadline.

Harriet Gross, Head of the School of Psychology says that "the idea of creating a social media garden for Chelsea started as an online discussion with colleagues at [the University of] Lincoln, and represents an exciting opportunity to combine these two interests [of people's well-being and sense of self, together with problem solving] in a collaborative design project".  Interestingly, this project will be the first RHS Chelsea Flower show garden from a British University which does not have a horticulture department.

What became of particular interest to the architects was the possibility to explore different design territories within the context of what has effectively become an architectonic installation. In particular the notion of the material and immaterial being forced to interact as a series of metaphors and events.

This has been realised through the construction of an articulated mechanical wall that separates whilst simultaneously conjoining two distinct and different gardens, this distinctness and difference materializing the notion of the compression of space and time affected by the Internet, whilst concurrently creating the expectation of a dematerialized event, a ‘Tweet’.

When Tweets discussing the #RHSChelsea Flower Show or @digcapabilities are detected, the panelled screen activates, permitting selected views of the concealed garden. View a short film of the activated panels during its construction.

Above picture shows the Master of Architecture students: from left to right: Christopher Lappin, Peter Stretton, Sean Pemble, David Richie, Josh Sykes, and Paul Nelson.

The garden, which hasn't even been seen by the general public yet, is already attracting a lot of press coverage, some of which can be viewed by clicking on the following links:-

BBC News Lincolnshire
MSN News
The Lincolnite
UK Wired News
Engineering and Technology Magazine
Alpha Galileo Foundation
Liverpool Wired
Manchester Wired

Go to the project’s website at www.digitalcapabilities.com to find out more, follow the garden on Twitter @digcapabilities or tweet using #rhschelsea to get involved.

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show takes place between 21st and 25th May 2013.