THE WORLD ARCHITECTURE FESTIVAL
NOVEMBER 2015
World Architecture Festival 2015 will bring together over 2,000 architects and designers to Singapore for 3 days of presentations, debates and celebration. On the 4th November Niall will be taking part in a debate to discuss ‘why and how can architecture be discussed in terms of aesthetics? What does the practice of architecture contribute to the discourse of the aesthetic? And, are aesthetic values ‘eternal’ or contingent?’ On the main stage Niall will also be taking part in a presentation on Designing for Age.
NAZRIN SHAH BUILDING – STEELWORK
JULY 2015
Just over two years since our first tentative steps towards imagining what sort of space a new auditorium for Worcester College might possibly be like, we find ourselves enclosed within a spidery sketch, looking up to the trees through a skeletal enclosure of steel. We watched in excitement as our drawings were scribed across the site, first in neon spray paint and little red sticks, later excavated into deep ravines. We pick our way across the lines that had become so familiar on paper and are now concrete obstacles in a muddy field. The reality of this transition only became real as we stood looking across at the steel columns in this picture. They map out the positions of the stone fins that radiate around the curved facade of the new auditorium, with the sloping beams above us silhouetted against the bright July sky marking the future locations of the sculpted folds to the soffit.