‘After travelling to a diverse set of locations and contexts across the globe, this team of architects and a writer Owen Pritchard, examined how the image of the architect varies around the world. From Houston and Bangkok to Amsterdam and Ebbw Vale, these locations reveal a variety of approaches to urban development. Conceived within a UK context of apprehension about the future of the profession, their investigation was motivated by a desire to reaffirm qualities that are vital to the continued progress of society and to the architect’s role as an agent in the world. Two motivating factors drove their work: first, they aimed to accurately depict an image of architects within varied but specific contexts. Second, they sought to provide a platform for debate surrounding the future of the profession. The group’s findings will inform an Open Charter – a proposal for a new platform for discussion and engagement for the architectural profession to clarify, critique and act upon critical issues that determine the role of the architect.’ Vicky Richardson, Venice Takeaways Publication.

With public works and Owen Pritchard

http://www.venicetakeaway.com/
http://www.open-charter.net
http://www.labiennale.org

Urban Projects Bureau produced a 3 minute participatory film exploring spatial narratives in London in 2012. The film juxtaposed different film and text narratives collected via live twitter feeds across London in the summer of 2012.

The film was commissioned by Blueprint Magazine and was broadcast at Design Junction in the Old Sorting Office as part of London Design Festival 2012.

Urban Projects Bureau were invited to take part in the ‘Can You Show Me The Space?’ mapping exhibition and series of events as part of art and architecture collective public works’ fellowship at the Stanley Picker Gallery, University of Kingston. We mapped the social networks created by Public Works’ Granville Cube, a temporary mobile installation in a housing estate in Kilburn, and drew the territory of the cube as an extended social space.

Since the early 1970s when the unit was first established by Bernard Tschumi, the AA’s Diploma Unit 10 has experimented with diverse ways of engaging with the city and in the last 10 years, led by Carlos Villanueva Brandt, the unit has focussed this engagement on London, in the process of developing the concept of direct urbanism. The London +10 exhibition explores 20 years of this work, and speculates on the relationship between the live realm of the city and its urban fabric, and includes 40 projects that tackle topics such as politics, crime, sex and terrorism.
Urban Projects Bureau took part in the design of the exhibition, which includes a number of drawings by Alex Warnock-Smith and new drawings produced especially for the exhibition. Alex Warnock-Smith was assistant editor of the London +10 book, published by AA publications.

The AA Housing & Urbanism programme was invited to exhibit at the Guadalajara International Book fair in 2006. The exhibition presented an overview of work developed by students over a series of workshops held in Mexico City between 2003-2006. The workshops were held in collaboration with the staff and students of the Architecture Faculties of local universities: UAM, UNAM and the IBERO. The focus of the workshops was to propose development strategies for the historic centre of Mexico City and to consider alternative approaches to incorporating the informal sector into urban development strategies for the district.