Previous Lectures
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MARC Guest Lecture Seminar Series
Damian O’Doherty: "Spaced-Out in the City - An Ambulatory Automatism in Search of Organization"
An event organised by MARC (Manchester Architecture Research Centre)
4pm, Tuesday, December 1st 2009
Humanities Bridgeford St. Building, 1.69/1.70
Building no. 35 on the Campus map.
This lecture reports on a methodological experiment that inscribed the letters ‘order/disorder’ across a standard A-Z map of Manchester.
Deploying strict mathematical formulae in the spirit of the ‘Oulipo’ school, a series of urban walks were designed in ways that might permit exploration and analysis of patterns of organisation/disorganisation.
Damian O’Doherty is Senior Lecturer in Organisation Analysis at the Manchester Business School in the University of Manchester. He publishes widely across the social sciences and has recently co-authored the collection Manifestos for the Business School of Tomorrow published by Dvalin Press. Dr O’Doherty serves on the editorial boards of a number of journals and is executive board member of the Standing Conference on Organisational Symbolism.
Free admission. No reservation required.
The Manchester School of Architecture (msa) is a joint school of the Manchester Metropolitan University and the University of Manchester.
- Event flyer (PDF, 500KB
"Architecture Depends"
Speaker: Jeremy Till.
Date: Tuesday, November 10th 2009.
Time: 4 - 6pm
Professor Jeremy Till is Dean of the School of Architecture and the Built Environment at the University of Westminster. He is the author of:
• 2009 Jeremy Till, Architecture Depends, (Cambridge MIT Press, 2009)
• 2007 Jeremy Till and Tatjana Schneider, Flexible Housing, (London, Architectural Press 2007)
"Beautiful Pictures on a Blank Sheet of Paper" Utopian Planning and Urban Sprawl in Contemporary China
Speaker: Samuel Y. Liang.
Date: Tuesday, April 21 2009.
Time: 14:00.
Venue: Arthur Lewis Building G0.038 (Building 36 on campus map) .
No reservation required
Samuel Y. Liang specializes in modern Chinese architecture and urbanism and has published articles in leading journals in architectural history and Chinese studies. His forthcoming book examines urban vernacular architecture of nineteenth-century Shanghai and maps the city's spatial, gender, and material modernity. His current research focuses on housing and state-led urban rebuilding programmes in Maoist and contemporary China.
In this presentation, Liang examines the Chinese state’s continued deployment of utopia in planning large-scale construction projects and the persistent urban sprawl paradoxically as a result of the state governance that favours such projects. In post-Mao China, Liang's analysis shows, the local governments of great cities reassert state leadership in implementing mega-projects of “scientific planning.”
- Download flyer (PDF, 65KB)
Sustainable living experiments and the costliness of involvement
Speaker: Noortje Marres
Date: 31st March 2009
Time: 2pm
Venue: Arthur Lewis Building G.035/0.36
Biography: Noortje Marres is a Research Fellow at the James Martin Institute, University of Oxford. She has a background in science and technology studies, and received her PhD from the Philosophy Department of the University of Amsterdam, for a thesis on (neo-)pragmatist theories of democracy in a technological society.
Synopsis: This paper discusses how experiments with sustainable living provide occasions for the definition of public engagement in socio-material terms. Analysing attempts to introduce CO2 in everyday life as a unit of measurement, it explores how such initiatives deploy domestic devices and settings as tools of involvement, and end up challenging ideals of “involvement made easy.”
- Download Noortje Marres lecture flyer (PDF, 78KB)
Thinking through sustainable technologies: Between performance and ideology
Speaker: Graham Farmer.
Date: 3rd March 2009.
Time: 2pm.
Venue: University Place, Lecture Theatre A.
Biography: Graham Farmer has a background as a practicing architect and contributed to several award winning buildings. Currently, he is Associate Professor in Architecture at the University of Nottingham. His final year design research studio encourages a deeper engagement with sustainability and explores the themes of nature and artifice. His research focuses on the technical, ethical and philosophical dimensions of sustainable architecture.
Synopsis: The talk will explore the values and design knowledge required to produce sustainable buildings. Four commercially funded low-energy demonstration projects will be used to draw a distinction between merely efficient and successful technologies and will highlight the limitations of a techno-rational approach to sustainable design. In contrast, the experiences gained through a Zero-Carbon Architecture Research Studio will be used to highlight the potential value of engaged scholarship and applied research that is grounded in real-life contexts. The talk will conclude by exploring the potential of ‘live’ building projects as a vehicle for research and teaching and as a means of linking sustainable design to human problems in local contexts.
- Download Graham Farmer lecture flyer (PDF, 86KB)
Tuesday 11 November 2008
2pm.
Kilburn Building, 1.1. (Building 39 on campus map)
Guest lecture by Alan Marcus (University of Aberdeen).
When a town is called Dachau: Urban reinvention and the stature of place (PDF, 384KB)
All are welcome to attend.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
2pm.
Simon Building, room G31. (Building 59 on campus map)
Guest lecture by Korinna Thielen (Arup Urban Design).
Designing cities for the ecological age Arup Urban Design recent work (PDF, 75KB)
International workshop on : Architectures, Spaces, and Politics
September 3rd 2008
09:30 (Morning Session)
14:00 (Afternoon Session)
Room 2.03 Humanities Bridgeford Street (formerly Kantarovich Building) (Building 35 on campus map)
Synopsis : An international workshop looking at the roles 'Architectures' play in the shaping of spatial and political landscapes; organised by the Manchester Architecture Research Centre and the Topology of Technology Graduate School, TU Darmstadt.
Programme
09:30 - Introductions
10:00 - Dr. Lars Frers - TU Darmstadt "The subtle politics of making matter: Musings on the naturalisation of architecture's product"
10:45 - Sebastian Haumann - TU Darmstadt "Vernacular architecture as self-determination: Venturi, Scott Brown, and the controversy over Philadelphia's Crosstown Expressway"
11:30 - Susanne Schregal - TU Darmstadt "Small spaces for peace? Nuclear weapon-free zones in Great Britain and West Germany in the early 1980s"
12:15 - Dr. Andrew Crompton - Manchester Architecture Research Centre "Title TBC"
13:00 - 14:00 - Lunch Break
14:00 - TBC
14:45 - Liam Sharratt - Manchester Architecture Research Centre "Models as mediators of design in sustainable architectural decision-making: The case of BREEAM"
15:30 - Jan Fischer - Manchester Architecture Research Centre "Architects as intermediaries of carbon-neutral futures"
16:15 - Rebecca Madgin - University of East London "Title TBC"
17:00 Onwards - After-workshop drinks at Sandbar, Grosvenor Street.
Thursday 29th May
2pm.
Venue to be confirmed.
Lauren Christie, PhD student at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and Liam Sharratt, PhD student at MARC, will present on their research followed by an informal discussion.
All are welcome to attend.
April 15th 2008
15:00.
Humanities Bridgeford St. (formerly Kantorovich Building) Room 1.69. (Building 35 on campus map).
Guest lecture by Chris Tweed (University of Cardiff).
"Is sustainable design just a another name for good architecture?" (PDF, 75KB).
Synopsis: Many architects insist they have been practising sustainable design for many years, arguing it is little more than what is generally considered to be good design. This talk will consider the contributions architecture can make to creating sustainable environments and identifies areas where design may have little or no impact. The concept of affordances, emerging from interactions between people and their environments, will be a major theme.
Biography: Chris Tweed studied architecture before engaging in research on energy in buildings, computers in architecture and human interaction with the built environment. He was recently appointed as Director of the BRE Centre for Sustainable Design of the Built Environment (SuDoBE) at the Welsh School of Architecture, where he is developing a programme of research that seeks to combine technical, social and psychological perspectives on sustainability.
- Download audio presentation (zipped mp3, 5.5MB)
- Listen to the presentation (Windows media player, 48mins)
March 18th 2008
15:00.
Kilburn Building, 1.4.
(Building 39 on campus map).
Guest Lecture by Stephan Trüby.
"Exit-Architecture - Design Between War and Peace". (PDF, 120KB).
An event organised by MARC (Manchester Architecture Research Centre).
Synopsis: "First we shape things, then they shape us", was Churchill’s view. What kind of architecture can be said to shape? By what means does it shape? The author’s answer to this question is a surprise: through war and proximity to stress. After a tour d’horizon through Roman temples, Washington’s corridors of power and Mecca’s anti-panic architecture it becomes clear that architecture is anything but in the background. Instead it is situated in the hot spot of transmission dynamics and is capable of altering cultures, empires and even religions.
The speaker: Stephan Trüby studied and taught architecture at theAASchool, London. He is Professor of Architektur at HfG Karlsruhe, Germany. He co-edited "Architektur theorie. Texte seit 1960" (2003) and "5 Codes: Architecture, Paranoia and Risk in Times of Terror" (2006). In 2008 he published „The World of Madelon Vriesendorp“ (with Shumon Basar) and "Exit-Architecture - Design Between War and Peace". He is founder of the architecture-, design and consultancy firm Exit Ltd.
February 26 2008
3pm.
Geoffrey Manton Building, MMU campus, Lecture Theatre 4 (No.9 MMU campus map).
Clare Rishbeth, University of Sheffield.
"Parallel lives? Divergent perspectives? City place revealed by first generation migrants" (PDF, 100KB).
Bio: Clare Rishbeth is a lecturer in Landscape Architecture at the University of Sheffield. A geographically chequered professional CV (Slough, Somerset, Lahore, Sheffield) helped shape an interest in the relationship between culture, ethnicity and social aspects of landscape; and the implications for planning and design in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods.
Synopsis: The ‘Walking Voices’ radio and research project addresses the media panic about segregated communities, hands the microphone to people who have moved to Britain from abroad and asks them about where they live. How important is local place in helping new migrants settle, and how might understanding diverse values inform priorities for urban neighbourhoods?
- Download presentation (PDF, 1.25MB)
- Download audio presentation (zipped mp3, 6MB)
- Listen to the presentation (Windows media player, 55mins)
December 11 2007
15:00pm.
Geoffrey Manton Building, MMU campus, room GM LT4, (No.9 MMU campus map).
Jenny Robinson, Geography, The Open University.
"Cities in a World of Cities: The comparative gesture" (PDF, 220KB).
November 6 2007
15:00pm.
Geoffrey Manton Building, MMU campus, room GM LT4, (No.9 MMU campus map).
Iain Borden, Director of the School of Architecture, The Bartlett, UCL.
"The Pleasures of Driving: Architecture, Cities and the Automobile" (PDF, 440KB).
October 5 2007
19:30-20:30pm.
Alexander Theatre in the Samuel Alexander Building (formerly known as Arts Theatre in Humanities Lime Grove, No. 67 on the campus map).
Bruno Latour, Sciences Po, Paris.
SED annual lecture lecture & MARC launch
"Is there a cosmopolitically correct design?" (PDF, 452KB).
Find out more about the MARC launch and listen to Bruno Latour's lecture.
June 7 2007
MARC Guest Lecture
4:00 p.m.
Cordingley Lecture Theatre, Humanities Bridgeford Street.
Victor Buchli, Department of Anthropology, University College London.
"Immateriality and Things" (PDF 60KB)
May 22 2007
CUPS
POLYNET and AFTER:
A New Geography of Britain
Sir Peter Hall - Bartlett Professor of Planning and Regeneration, University College London.
May 15 2007
JOINT
Debate Forum.
City-regions: people and place.
Chaired by Michael Hebbert - Professor of Planning, University of Manchester.
Vincent Goodstadt - Strategic Planner and Honorary Professor, University of Manchester.
Alan Harding - Professor, Institute for Political and Economic Governance, University of Manchester.
Joe Ravetz - Co-Director, CURE, University of Manchester.
Peter Roberts - Chair of the Academy for Sustainable Communities and Professor at the School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds.
May 10 2007
MARC Guest Lecture
4:00 p.m.
Room G7, Humanities Bridgeford St.
Ignaz Strebel, University of Edinburgh, Geography/Architecture
"The Concierge is the Architect: servicing buildings, practicing maintenance and the un/making of highrise living in Red Road, Glasgow" (PDF 90KB).
May 8 2007
CUPS
Economic Success and Political Incoherence: The Paradoxical Condition of the Brussels City-Region.
Erik Swyngedouw - Professor of Geography, University of Manchester.
May 1 2007
CURE
Peri-Urban Land-use Relationships and Strategies.
Stephan Pauleit - Professor in Landscape Planning, University of Copenhagan.
April 24 2007
CURE
Planning as Learning: Reflecting on the Promotion of Sustainable Construction.
Yvonne Rydin - Professor of Planning and the Environment, University College London.
April 17 2007
CUPS
From Clusters to Hubs: A New Model for Regional Development.
Michael Luger - Professor, Director of Manchester Business School.
April 10 2007
MARC Guest Lecture
4:00 p.m.
Cordingley Lecture Theatre.
Steven Moore, University of Texas at Austin, Architecture
"Urban Story Lines and Sustainable Development" (PDF 180KB).
March 13 2007
MARC Guest Lecture
Codification and Regulation of Architects' Practices, (PDF 1MB)
Rob Imrie - Professor of Geography, King's College London.
March 8 2007
MARC Guest Lecture
4:00 p.m.
Room G7, Humanities Bridgeford St.
Paul Waley, University of Leeds, Geography,
"Tokyo-as-World-City: Reassessing the Role of Capital and the State in Urban Restructuring" (PDF 140KB).
March 6 2007
CUPS
Flows and City-Regions
Professor Brian Robson (Geography) and Professor Cecilia Wong (Planning and Landscape)
February 20 2007
MARC Guest Lecture
Giving Environmental Psychology Away.
Chris Spencer - Professor of Environmental Psychology, University of Sheffield.
February 20 2007
4:00 pm
Chris Spencer, Professor of Environmental Psychology, University of Sheffield,
"Giving Environmental Psychology Away" (PDF 1.2MB)
Part of the joint CUPS/CURE/MARC guest lecture series
February 15 2007
4:00 pm
Wolfgang Weileder, University of Newcastle, School of Arts and Cultures,
"Shifting walls: house-projects and transfer" (PDF 70KB)
Part of the MSA guest lecture series