Happy Christmas

Wishing you all a good break and look forwards to seeing you in the New year, the Christmas opening hours can be found here

Cook's Camden

Image credit courtesy of mattwi10n's

There is an exhibition at the Building Centre on 26 Store Street running till the 27th November of Sydney Cook's work.

Cook's Camden looks at the housing projects and urban landscape that were built whilst Sydney Cook was the borough's architect. Great examples of social housing developments and designs can be viewed including photographs of completed plans and models, and continue to be an inspiration today.

Interestingly the exhibition has been curated based on research being carried out at Oxford Brookes University on discourses between space and society.

SABE Library Search drop-in sessions

There will be some specific dates for SABE students in using Libray Search on the following dates:

Monday 18th & Tuesday 19th Oct
Monday 25th & Tuesday 26th Oct
Monday 1st & Tuesday 2nd Nov
Monday 8th and Tuesday 9th Nov

They will stary at 3pm in the Library Training room (North Area) and will offer assistance in using Library Search.

No need to book, drop by to find out more or to ask specific queries.

Welcome....!

Photograph courtesy of Renjith Krishnan

I would like to extend a warm welcome to all the new and returning students studying Architecture and the Built Environment at the University.

If you are a new student you probably have lots of questions right now and may be in danger of sinking under information overload during your first week. Hopefully I have seen you during the library induction sessions where the aim is to familiarise you with the facilities and services available, if you have missed the induction session then you can find all the key IT & Library information here online , and you can also pick up a copy of the print guide at Marylebone Library.

To get you started in looking for books and journals in electronic and print format use the new Library Search (note to returning students, this has replaced infoLinX & the Library Catalogue). We will be running some general drop-in sessions on how to get started with this from the 4th October for 2 weeks, this will be followed by 4 weeks of subject specific sessions so please feel free to come along and find out more. They will be held in the Library training room and there are flyers available if you ask at the Library Counter.

The main thing I would like to emphasise is please do not hesitate to contact me direct with any queries that I can assist you with, you can email here mirese@wmin.ac.uk

Open House London

The architectural showcase that is Open House London will open doors to hundreds of building across London on the 18th and 19th of September.

It is FREE and provides the opportunity to explore not only the buildings but also the issues relating to buildings such as climate change, role of architects and design of homes to name a few.

You can order the listings guide from their website and also browse a summary list of bookable buildngs.

Plymouth: 20th century city

Plymouth 2oth century city is a project site created to celebrate Plymouth's architecture and urban planing.

Plymouth city centre is a great example of post-War British planning and architecture after much of it's original infrastructure was severly bombed.

Patrick Abercrombie was hired as town planner and alongside James Paton Watson they replaced the old streets with a functional design. Plymouth was awarded city status in 1928 and has the most post-war buildings listed by English Heritage in the country, outside of London.

This site has an interactive map of the city plus other audiovisual trails, timelines and publication references.

Blueprint Big Breakfasts

Photograph courtesy of Suat Eman


As part of the London Festival of Architecture, Blueprint the journal are hosting a week of big breakfast events commencing tomorrow with Ken Livingstone as the key speaker. The breakfast's themselves promise to be "hearty" and hosted at Smith's of Smithfields or the Luxe.

More details can be found here