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WINTER 2012
BOAKE + VAN PELT - BOOK LAUNCH AND LECTURE
Thursday, February 9, 2012 - 6:30pm
Come join with us in celebrating the launch of two books by UWSA Faculty Members! Lecture to be followed by a reception in the Atrium.
AT THE EDGE OF THE ABYSS:
A Concentration Camp Diary
edited by Robert Jan van Pelt
David Koker was born in Amsterdam in 1921 and was transported to the Vught concentration camp in 1943. Unlike Anne Frank, who had received a diary as a birthday present, David had no book in which to write. During the first month of his imprisonment he wrote his entries on whatever scraps of paper he was able to find. Later he used the exercise books supplied for the children who, after a short sojourn in Vught, were sent on to German-occupied Poland to be murdered. With the help of civilian workers overseeing the prisoner workshops, David was able to send almost a year's worth of entries to Amsterdam. In June 1944 David was deported to Auschwitz. Sent on in August to the Langenbielau camp in Silesia, he was included in a prisoner transport to Dachau in February 1945. He did not survive this journey.
Robert Jan van Pelt was born and educated in the Netherlands. He is university professor at the University of Waterloo in Canada, where he teaches in the School of Architecture. He has published widely on the history of Auschwitz, the Holocaust, and Holocaust denial.
David Koker's diary is a rare and notable account of the life of a Jewish prisoner in a German concentration camp. First brought to public attention when the Dutch historian Jacob Presser— Koker's history teacher in high school— quoted from it in The Destruction of the Dutch Jews, the diary became a part of the Dutch literary canon when it was published in 1977 as Dagboek geschreven in Vught (Diary Written in Vught). Weaving poetry with powerful insights into the emotional life of a camp prisoner, At the Edge of the Abyss is remarkable for its combination of historical significance and penetrating eloquence. During his time in the Vught concentration camp, the twenty-one-year-old David recorded his observations, thoughts, and feelings almost daily. He mercilessly probed the abyss that opened around him and, at times, within himself. David's diary covers almost a year, charting his life in Vught as it developed and revealing his spiritual evolution as a writer and poet. While imprisoned, David was able to smuggle some 73,000 words out of the camp to his best friend Karel van het Reve. With an informative introduction, annotations, and a biographical appendix by Robert Jan van Pelt, At the Edge of the Abyss offers an immediate and wholly original look into the life of a concentration camp prisoner.
UNDERSTANDING STEEL DESIGN: An Architectural Design Manual
Text and photos: Terri Meyer Boake | Technical Illustrations: Vincent Hui
Steel is a material whose characteristics have enormous potential for the creation of dynamic architecture. Based on a firm belief in the intrinsic connection between characteristics of materials and the design of buildings, this account of steel design maintains that it is more important for architects to have a good grasp of the nature and detailing of steel systems than it is for them to perform calculations. In an innovative approach to the reality of working with steel, the book takes a new look both at the state of tried-and-tested techniques, and at the potentials emerging from advanced projects.
Hundreds of steel structures have been observed, analyzed and appraised for this book, informed by many years of experience in teaching. Referencing buildings from around the world by firms like Foster, Gehry, Murphy/Jahn, Andreu, Libeskind, Pelli, ARUP and many others, best practices in steel design are explained, using exclusive in-depth construction photographs by the author. These are complemented by technical illustrations created to look more closely at systems and details, as well as drawings supplied by fabricators that allow greater insight into a method of working with current digital drawing tools.
Understanding Steel Design treats all the classic themes, problems and solutions of materials and construction methods, supporting structure and shell, elements and connections, fire prevention and sustainability. Particular attention is paid to the interplay with other materials such as glass and wood, to requirements for Architecturally Exposed Steel Structures and to innovative systems for load-bearing structures (diagrids), in an overall approach to understand how to design and build with steel from the perspective of its architectural applications.
Understanding Steel Design additional information
FALL 2011
All lectures will take place in the Main Lecture Hall at the School of Architecture in Cambridge at 6:30 pm unless otherwise noted. Admission is free and open to the public.
RICHARD KROEKER LECTURE
Tuesday, December 13, 2011 at 6:00pm (Loft)
Celebrated Dalhousie architecture Professor Richard Kroeker will be speaking
about his work, particularly his long-standing relationships and buildings done with Mi'kmaq communities in Nova Scotia and First Nations communities in Manitoba. The lecture and special crit session described below are associated with the McMinn M1 studio.
All are welcome to the lecture and the crit session taking place from 2:00 - 6:00 pm on the 13th afternoon the Loft.
Associated with this lecture, there will be a crit session starting at 2:00pm featuring the work of graduate students whose theses involve research and design proposals for several Canadian First Nations Communities. While the lecture and reviews were planned long in advance of the recent national news coverage of the unfolding housing crisis in the northern Ontario community of Attawapiskat and many other remote First Nations communities across the country, the surge in public awareness of these seemingly intractable issues, makes the Kroeker lecture and review discussions all the more topical and poignant. Critics for the afternoon reviews will be Richard Kroeker, along with Dr. William Woodworth and John McMinn,. Dr Woodworth is Spring term teaches the elective course Twelve Architectures: Aboriginal Culture and Architecture out of the Grand River Watershed.
Richard Kroeker, together with fellow Dalhousie professor Brian Lilley, is architect of the Pictou Landing Health Centre built for a Mi'kmaq community in Northern Nova Scotia and was architect for the Murdena Marshall Meeting Hall for another Mi'kmaq community in Cape Breton. With these projects and others Kroeker developed a unique structural system using small diameter round wood poles assembled into bow truss members which form the space and the unique character of the architecture. Kroeker's career has focused on indigenous communities and the development of appropriate material technologies, in diverse locations both in the Maritimes and beyond, including Manitoba as well as remote locations in the Gambia in West Africa.
Trained at the Architectural Association he has taught at Dalhousie for more than twenty years, and was past Director of the Dalhousie School of Architecture.
Link to Pictou Landing Health Centre
THE HYLOZOIC GROUND COLLABORATION
Thursday, October 13, 2011 at 6:30pm
Philip Beesley speaks about his Venice experience, Thursday, October 13 at 6:30pm. This will be a unique opportunity to hear about the ideas behind the installation as well as the adventure that followed. The exhibit has just been given a renewed lease on life in its transformation into a permanent installation at the Leondardo in Salt Lake City, Utah. The opening ceremony was Wednesday, October 5, 2011. This will also be an opportunity to see the exhibit in Design at Riverside as the final day of the exhibit is October 16, 2011.
http://blog.theleonardo.org/2011/09/poetry-of-hylozoic-new-sublime.html
Dr. Rachel Armstrong - New Ways of Seeing:
Complexity
Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 6:30 pm
Dr. Rachel Armstrong is a Global TED Fellow and codirector of the AVATAR
Research Group at the University of Greenwich, London. Armstrong is an
interdisciplinary practitioner with a background in medicine who
collaborates extensively with artists, scientists and architects to create
new experimental spaces that re-engage with the fundamental creativity of
science. She is widely published including a blog series in WIRED, worldwide
presentations associated with TED, consultancies with international agencies
and governments, and a feature in the London Times that presented her
approach to architecture as 'the power to define 21st century landscapes'.
Dr. Armstrong emphasizes the unique role that architecture occupies within
the cultural imagination, offering an ideal forum to reimagine our
experience of the world so that we can reinvent our role within it. Her
acclaimed research on building systems demonstrates how buildings can share
properties of living systems.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAMrtHC2Ev0>
Jakab + McFarlane, Paris - 'Le Défi'
Wednesday, September 21, 2011 at 6:00 pm
Part of the “Vis-à-vis Architecture cycle
Coordinated by the Embassy of France in Ottawa and the Institut Français
Sponsored by Azure Magazine
