POLITECNICO DI MILANO LECTURE
APRIL 2021
Niall gave a lecture for the Politecnico di Milano as part of a series of online conferences in the context of the master’s degree in “Architectural Design and History” directed by Prof. Federico Bucci. His lecture reviewed the collection of halls that we submitted for the Venice Biennale in 2018. It described the installation and the idea it embodied of framed halls within bounded enclosures and looked at eight of the halls, which have all now been built.
BALLIOL FACADE TRIP
APRIL 2017
We are working on new student residential buildings for Balliol College, Oxford. As part of the detailed design development we have been working with a façade sub-contractor based in Belgium, and recently made a visit to their manufacturing factories. The itinerary for the day – a design workshop, a factory tour and a review of samples. Lots of coffee after an early Eurostar, and a good lunch.
There had been several similar design workshops before; where gathered around the meeting table, sketches were scattered as we questioned the architectural intent and the construction details equally. Brick samples sat in front of us, books piled up with precedents opened, past project drawings and models pulled out for reference. How to compose the language to create a calm and unified façade across the site. The engineers, the architects, the craftsmen who will build the façade.
These sorts of discussion are an aspect of everyday practice, and incredibly valuable part of the process – marrying the conversations of design aspiration with the actual making of. The bricks and mortar that see the architecture delivered from the paper to the physical form.