RIBA Conference 2007, Anthony White Blog

Anthony White, of Michael Sparks Associates posts his thoughts on the RIBA Conference in Paris… Thursday 25th October Caught the Eurostar at 10.40 am. Quite effortless – beats flying any day. Sat next to Jason Green from Hamilton’s. Had a rather tasteless Eurostar chicken sandwich, but enjoyed Jason’s story of epic and potentially disastrous holiday in Alaska.Met Julian Howlett and Warren Rosing at the Gard du Nord and walked to the Hotel. Having checked in, I took off to the Père-Lachaise Cemetery just down the road and saw the tombs of Collette, Chopin, Sarah Bernhardt, Pissaro, Seurat, and Jim Morrison. Missed Oscar Wilde Edith Piaff and Eileen Gray. Gray does not appear on the cemetery map, but she is buried somewhere here apparently. In the evening I met up with the others in the Corus group and went to the Buro Happold Party at the Cite de l’Architectur, which involved an enormous walk, because I had the bright idea to going to Concorde stop on the metro because of a bomb scare, instead of Ilena. Enjoyable relaxed atmosphere – good nibbles. Interesting chat with a French construction lawyer, Bertrand. Then an interesting browse around the museum, although I did not have the time to go further back in time than the 20th Century. Friday The Conference starts with Jean Nouvel. I thought his slow delivery may have intimated an interminable discourse, but he turned out to be an economic and interesting speaker, employing the occasional sparkle of humour. Nouvel’s Musee du Quai Branly is worth a visit, I thought. Interesting slide of the aboriginal art that adorns it. Then Spencer de Grey joined him at the podium for a joint presentation of the Foster/Nouvel scheme for Walbrook Square. No sense of collaboration here – I sensed a slight tension between the two as De Grey failed to respond to Nouvel’s more light hearted and humourous insights to their working relationship. Nouvel did bring up some of the problems of a smaller office working with the mighty South London practice. I cannot help feeling that language can be a barrier sometimes as design seems to involve more talking than drawing. It would not be a problem if designers could only communicate through illustration. Some delegates commented afterwards that Walbrook Square looked as though the bottom of the development was designed by Fosters and the upper part by Nouvel. Rafael Vinoly followed, giving what turned out to be one of the most interesting talks, offering a somewhat ambiguous account into the merits or otherwise of collaboration, which in this case involved working with a client in the form of a research based medical institution embodied in a close knit group of scientists. The resulting building is a tour de force, a dynamic interplay of functionality and sensitivity to an open site, which may have been a triumph, not necessarily because of the collaborative effort, but of the architect keeping the client in synch with his own ideas. There was then an account of Terminal 5, a business-like presentation that involved one of the BAA project manager-type blokes whose motivational jargon was something I was hoping to get away from in this event which ostensibly is about architects communicating with each other. Mike Davies, dressed in red as usual, gave a superbly succinct précis of the development of the design, but no interesting details of the finished building were on offer in the slide show. The terminal has been heavily compromised in the design process, but this is not the fault of anyone in particular – just due to the circumstances that intervened. Tzena James, (who is known to my mate Douglas Emslie who chairs the SW London Branch of the RIBA), asked some difficult questions which were not answered by the project manager bloke or the Man in Red. The question was probably silly - “Did the design team collaborate with the residents of West London?” I would have thought five years of Public Inquiry was enough for the residents of West London to get their views across. Lunch involved cubes of beef and cocktail sticks, and small wine glasses of Coke. The session was finished off by Roisin Heneghan and Tony McLaughlin, talking about their successful competition entries, particularly for the new museum at Giza. Gratuitous triangulation and postscripted theorizing seemed to be the order of the day in explaining the simplistic concept behind this massive project which encroaches onto the pyramids more than any recent expansion of Cairo and, by its sheer volume and scale, embodies the use of more resources, both financial and natural, than I would have thought our society and our planet could afford. Off to see the Musée du Quai Branly afterwards. Looks good, but I not sure about its relationship with urban context, but then again buildings which are too respectful of urban context are not always that much better either. Then I dashed over to the Centre Pompidou for drinks. Caught up with my mate Craig Sheach who is here with the Assael crew. I asked him where he was last night. He said “Getting pissed”. They all went to the restaurant upstairs for dinner. Met up with Ian Law, an old mate form Powell & Moya – no change there. He still wears a donkey jacket just like he did twenty years ago. Mused with Tzena James as to why Mike Davies wears red and speculating as to whether this extended to his underwear. Is it religious or is he an old hippy? Then a guy called Scott came up and told me he was a brilliant sustainability consultant. Afterwards I joined the Corus group for dinner at the Restaurant Jenny just off the Place du Republique, which offered a range of Alsace dishes mostly involving pig. Very tasty. I thought however I should have ordered the pig’s trotter and chips. Saturday Ellen Van Loon started off giving a sparse and workwoman-like talk about OMAs attitudes to collaboration. It was actually very interesting and reflected the very international scene of modern construction practice. I have never shown much interest in OMA, but then I suddenly remembered I visited their Dutch Embassy in Berlin three years ago. That was good. Will Allsop and Bruce Maclean then gave a refreshing stand up routine explaining their own venture in collaboration, and while the talk was ad hoc and chaotic with not much of architectural interest, but it did nevertheless demonstrate more than anything else in the conference that success of collaboration comes through friendship and common interest. Duncan Kenworthy, producer of boring movies like “Love Actually”, gave us a long and equally boring talk about how film production teams are structured, as if that was of any interest to us. “This structure does not change”, he told us, “It is the same for every movie”. Well, is this a model for the dynamic and fluid exchange for ideas of teams working in a new collaborative environment? I did not think there was much for us to learn from the world of movies. Rather, I think the reverse is true. Having unjustifiably overshot his allotted time, we missed out on a lot of what the brilliant Odile Decq could offer us in her stunning presentation, and she unfortunately had to hurry at the end, giving little chance for us to appreciate her fantastic work. A quick tour around the venue, the Communist Party Headquarters, which I last visited in 1974 when I was on a student field trip, and then lunch, which involved the same beef cubes and cocktail sticks as yesterday. Then I was off for a quick walk about town before catching Eurostar home. A great weekend and most inspiring conference, thanks to great speakers, pleasant delegates and to the hospitality of Corus!   The views expressed in this post are those of the author, and not those of either Corus or Michael Sparks Associates

RIBA Conference, Paris 2007

I have just returned to work after an eventful (but tiring!) few days at the RIBA Conference in Paris.

I’ve created a specific section for this event at the top of the blog (just Click on RIBA Conference) which is packed with more details of the event as well as lots of pics of the great architecture in Paris.

The conference ran from Thursday October 25th through to Saturday October 27th, with tours arranged up until the Sunday. Corus brought along a number of architects to the event (Which Corus also sponsored), and many of them have written a short review on their own experience of the Conference - Click here to see their posts

To see the flickr gallery of photos taken, click here

RIBA Conference 2007, Mark Hilton Blog

Mark Hilton is Principal Architect at RPS Burks Green. Here, Mark gives a day-by-day account of the RIBA event in Paris… Thursday 25th October Nottingham, 3.30am, alarm goes off – two snoozes later, time to get up. Plane to catch at 6.40 and Steve Davis to pick up on the way. 5.30am arrive at East Midlands Airport – time for a spot of breakfast and then we’re off to Paris. Arrived at Paris CDG at around 9.00am local time and got the train into Gare du Nord. Decided to walk to the hotel, a little further than expected due to Steve’s map reading skills but got to the Holiday Inn at around 10.00am local time. Unable to check in so early and also realising that if we took the first RIBA tour in the afternoon we wouldn’t make it back to the hotel reception for 6.00pm (to meet the Corus reps) we decided to do our own tour - on foot.After dropping the bags at the hotel we set off walking. Firstly we went to Notre Damn and then off to the Louvre. Here we decided to have a look around (I’d been before on two separate occasions but I think you could spend a year in there and still not see it all). After a couple of pictures of the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo we then carried on walking, next to the Eifel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. Decided to break the journey with a Panini and a couple of pints off the Champs-Elysees - then got the Metro back to the Hotel at about 5.30pm. At 6.10pm met Ana, Dave etc down in Hotel reception. We then caught the Metro up to Cite de l’architecture. The Metro was very slow and as we were running late we decided to get off and walk – as predicted by Ana as we got off, the train started to move!!! The walk was a little further than expected – passing the tunnel and monument where Diana died. After about 30mins of walking and after finding the right door to the reception we finally made it – a little late but didn’t miss anything. We had a few wines and canapés enjoying great views over the Eiffel Tower and the rest of Paris. Following the speeches and the rest of the champagne we all got the Metro back to the hotel. Found a great restaurant where we all had a meal and plenty of drink courtesy of Corus, followed by a relatively early night c.12.30am ready for an early start tomorrow Friday 26th October 7.15am alarm goes off, a quick shower and down to breakfast at 7.50. Following breakfast we all head down to the Communist Party HQ – very impressive building, but thought the lighting a little too dim outside of the main auditorium. Sunand Prasad introduced things and followed by a VT of Oscar Niemeyer – not bad for 99 but I’m not sure I’ll be still working at his age!!! We then had a really interesting lecture by Jean Nouvelle and Spencer de Grey talking collaboration and a scheme they are working together on in London. We also had a good one by Rafael Vinoly – talking about one of his major projects and how he collaborated with the client and artists on that one. Mike Davies (the man in Red) then gave a wonderful account of his 18 years working on T5 Heathrow and that was followed after lunch by Roisin Heneghan talking about the visitors centre competition her practice won for the Pyramids at Giza. Following all the lectures Steve and I walked back to the hotel at about 3.30 where we had a couple of drinks prior to the night ahead. We all walked down to the Pompidou for the drinks reception there at 7.00pm. This was a nice place to mingle with fellow architects – some fairly well known, and Mike Davies gave a good account of his time working on the Pompidou – this was one of the highlights of the whole trip for me – I actually felt quite privileged to listen and stand next to the guy that helped design such an iconic building – he was also responsible for the Dome (not a bad CV and career!) Following the reception and drinks we all then went for a meal at a restaurant close to our hotel. Didn’t think it was good as the previous night where I had a gorgeous steak, however glad I had a kebab and not the trotters Steve had!!! Karl, Steve and I then rounded off a great evening with some further drinks at some local bars - finally getting to bed at around 3.30am.   Steve enjoying some trotters… Saturday 27th October Alarm goes off at 7.20am – I turn it off and then go back to sleep. Next news Steve calls on the main phone to say he is in Reception ready to go – oops I’ve over slept! 5mins later I’m downstairs and we’re in a taxi to Gare du Nord on our way home. Caught train to airport, (had to jump a queue there as we were running quite late) but after buying a last minute present for my wife (perfume – how original) we were on the plane back to sunny Nottingham. Great trip!!! The views expressed in this post are those of the author, and not those of either Corus or RPS Burks Green

RIBA Conference 2007, Peter Lomax Blog

Peter Lomax, TCIAT Associate of Stephen George and Partners details the RIBA Conference in Paris…  It was very nice of Corus to invite a group of Architects (and me) out to the RIBA conference 2007 in Paris – Eurostar, 3 nights in Holiday Inn Republique and excellent hosts kept us all entertained before and after the conferences. The theme of this year’s conference was Collaboration and RIBA president Sunand Prasad gave good introductions to all the speakers. The conference began on the evening of Thursday 25 October, with a rooftop champagne reception the Cite de l’Architecture & du Patriome for the opening reception hosted by Burro Hapold.   The main conference at the French Communist Party HQ (designed by Oscar Niemeyer) was a good choice of venue for the Friday and Saturday morning speeches.Oscar Niemeyer (aged 100) gave a video welcome and talked of collaboration with Le Corbusier on the UN building (1947-1953) Spencer de Grey of Fosters and Jean Nouvel spoke about their collaboration on the Walbrook Square development in London. Talked about how they reinstated the line of Watling Street that was blocked by the previous building on the site, how they are moving the Roman Temple of Mithras back to where it was originally found on the site and how the scale of the building has been reduced by the varied roofscape of the different blocks on the site (although they couldn’t agree on whether the roofscape were ‘clouds’ or ‘animals’) Walbrook Square, EC4 is a striking new office and retail development which incorporates approximately 1 million sq ft net floorspace, with approximately 95,000 sq ft of retail and restaurant floorspace and 875,000 sq ft of office space.   Rafael Vinoly (Tokyo International Forum. Completed in 1996) talked about the Howard Hughes Medical Institute campus project, Virginia USA in 2006. Mike Davies CBE of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners is the man that wears red and worked on Lloyds building, Pompidou Centre and Terminal 5 Heathrow to name a few and has been with Richard Rogers from the start. Mike talked us through the T5 project which has a massive 170m clear span, allowing complete flexibility of the multiple floor space within (a similar concept to the earlier successful Stanstead terminal, but on a slightly larger scale) Nick Terry of BDP gave an interesting talk on Building Information Modelling (BIM) which demonstrated that a full model of the building allowed all parties to input their expertise and arrive at a workable design with no clashes, although when we are working on speculative projects with no particular end user when the project starts on site, we never get the sort of lead-in period that BIM would require………… Roisin Heneghan  of Heneghan Peng Architects and Tony McLaughlin from Buro Happold talked us through the Cairo Museum project, which all looked very impressive.   However when someone asked about the extensive use of glass on the edge of the desert between the Pyramids and Cairo and how it would fare in a sandstorm the presentation did seem to unravel a little……… Ellen van Loon of Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) Rotterdam showed us a few interesting schemes including the very impressive Central Chinese Television (CCTV) building, Dutch Embassy and Casa da Musica, Porto. And how they collaborate with companies all over the world. Will Alsop (Peckham Library Stirling Prize Winner) and Bruce McLean (Artist and Sculptor) gave a great comedy duo talk on collaboration ……….can’t see how these two are ever going to build much though……… Duncan Kenworthy  OBE (the producer of Four Weddings and a Funeral (94), Gulliver’s Travels (96), Lawn Dogs (97), Notting Hill (99), The Parole Officer (01)) gave an interesting insight into how films are made…….one thing I got from this, was the use of the ‘Daily Film Rush’ where each days filming is reviewed by the bosses and any changes can be caught and re-done before you go any further………something we can all do on sites – review whats happening by having photos emailed from site or use of remotely activated webcams. Odile Decq partner at ODBC showed us some inspirational designs including a visitor centre in Osaka, Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome, and a ‘dancing’ bridge in France…… Thanks to Corus…excellent hosts and good company from Ana, Dave, Karl and Gary.  Good choice of hotel, centrally located to all the venues and to Gare du Nord, lots of good humour. RIBA will be producing a DVD of the event and posting it out to delegates soon. When I get a copy I will ensure everyone gets a chance to watch it (maybe as a CPD lunch, but don’t try ordering ‘Porc’ like me in a French restaurant) The views expressed here are those of the author, and not those of Corus Group or Stephen George and Partners

RIBA Conference 2007, Stephen Davis Blog

Stephen Davis, Principal Architectural Co-ordinator, RPS Burks Green, gives his account of the RIBA Conference in Paris…For some reason, this was my first time in Paris. Maybe it was because that it was always a bit too close, a bit too convenient that I hadn’t visited before. Kind of like going on holiday to Bournemouth – you can always go somewhere a bit less explored and further afield….To compare Paris to Bournemouth though would be to do it an injustice of the highest order!I travelled to Paris for the conference with my Colleague Mark Hilton. A veteran of Paris exploration, having completed 2 previous tours of duty. We had a good few hours to spare before the opening reception at Cité de l’Architecture & du Patrimoine, so embarked on a whistle stop tour of some of the obligatory sights.Our planned sweeping route was to take us on foot from our hotel, past the Pompidou centre, over the river to Notre Dame, the Louvre, Jardin des Tuileries, Musee du Quai Branly, Eifel Tower, Arc de Triomphe and finally Champs Elysees before returning to our hotel at Place de la Republique. It’s always hard to judge the scale of a city from a pocket map, but Paris is a BIG city. Some of the boys in the office were definitely having a laugh when they said all of that was walkable in a few hours – still we managed to do it all, even a quick flick around the inside of Notre Dame and the Louvre to see the necessary tourist bait. The return walk was however sacrificed at the expense of sitting down to have a couple of beers, the only thing we missed out on was the Pompidou centre, due to a bad start and a wrong turn!We were going to a reception on the second night held at the Pompidou, so all was not lost….. For the evening, we met with the rest of the Corus guests and our gracious hosts before heading off to the rooftop reception at Cité.My legs had started to ache by now and we decided to get off the Metro halfway to our destination and walk as the train was delayed mid journey.The train doors closed and the Metro duly shot off just as we had all debunked.I guess we were about 2 klicks away from where we were heading, along part of the same route Mark and I had taken earlier in the day – Déjà vu! The reception had a spectacular view of the now illuminated Eifel Tower and the Paris skyline. It’s a very low level city – most buildings are 4-7 storeys, with just one tower building, which just looks a bit lost within the landscape. After the champers reception, which Buro Happold hosted, I took a look around the exhibition in the Cité – after my eyes had adjusted from the all neon pink and red staircase and lobby area! Pretty enjoyable stuff. Some great models (of the building kind) on view and a wonderful space to boot. As we tried to get out to meet up outside with some others, we found ourselves exploring the lower levels – with reproductions of gothic vaults and friezes plus lots of stonework all reproduced in plasterboard and plaster.With so much of the real thing to be seen elsewhere, I saw little value in this part of the exhibition. Finding the exit was a bit of a relief as the canapés from earlier just hadn’t quite hit the spot! We finished the night with some good food in a cool restaurant. The conference itself was held in the HQ of the French Communist Party. The space was something to behold, with the discussions being held in the dome which protrudes swollen from the ground like an underground explosion has been contained by the flowing pavement. There was an art exhibition being held in the lobby of the space and I thought it was such a great fluid space to show artwork. The lighting left me thinking that the budget must have run out though – surely they didn’t want to put in those B&Q halogen lamps did they?! Oscar Niemeyer designed this concrete and glass building, and contributed to the conference with a filmed interview. There were some great speakers at the conference – the theme of the event was collaboration. Being with a practice of Architects and Engineers, I can appreciate the value of integrating design, and was interested to hear how other designers collaborated and integrated their designs. Sunand Prasad opened the conference and addressed us as ‘Commrades’. Fitting for the location. Jean Nouvel then started off his address with a comparison of making a building being similar to making a movie. The collaboration theme really kicked in with his correlation of architect as director, and how that you can’t design a building on your own. His collaborations have included those with editors, art critics, botanists, scenographers, artists and lighting designers.He talked of his recent project, Musee du Quai Branly, with its part living wall elevation and how the interior space has been designed with aboriginal artists. He called it a ‘gallery of the spirits’. Nouvel was joined by Spencer de Gray to discuss the Wallbrook Square project that the 2 are currently working together on. One of the delegates asked the question that was probably on everyone’s mind – who carries the PI?! Rafael Vinoly was a joy to listen to. He was very charming, whilst being quite ironic in his sense of humour. He too spoke of a comparison to the movies – the client being the producer. He spoke mainly of his involvement in the Howard Hughes Medical Foundation’s new research facility in the US, and how his close work with the Nobel prize winning scientist client had helped to shape his ideas for the scheme. Apparently, they used hydrogen balloons to mark out the building on the site – which resulted in them moving the whole thing 40m from the original location. Mike Davies spoke alongside John Milford from BAA about T5. They discussed how collaborative working was the only way to deliver large complex projects. They use what was called the T5 agreement, with BAA taking on all of the risk for the project. As there is no transference of risk to other parties in the design team, the client enjoys free thinking and clarity in the design – sounds like a ideal model that eliminates the ‘arse-covering’ that is all too common in the construction industry! Richard Saxon of BDP spoke about BIM collaboration tools – surely the way forward for Architectural and Engineering offices? And finally Roisin Heneghan and Tony McLaughlin from Buro Happold discussed their joint ventures in competition bids, with an emphasis on the Grand Museum project in Cairo. The H&S police were there though, and wanted to know how they were going to clean all that glass with all that sand blowing around!! The evening reception was hosted by Corus and was held in the mezzanine bar within the lobby of the Pompidou centre. A fine time was complimented by free flowing fine wine! Mike Davies spoke here again, with compelling stories of the struggle he, Rogers et al encountered whilst building the building we were stood in. I managed to grab half an hour to look around the rather excellent bookshop below the mezzanine and bought a sturdy Cindy Sherman book for my wife as well as 3 presents for myself – books by Raymond Pettibon, Richard Colman and Marcel Dzama. Try finding those in your local Waterstones! We rounded off the night with a meal of pigs trotters. Hmmm. That’ll teach me to try and interpret a French menu! The views expressed in this post are those of the author, and not those of either Corus or RPS Burks Green