Exhibitions, talks and pavilions will pepper the city during the London Festival of Architecture this month. Joining the dots is the 2015 theme ‘Work in Progress’, which will see architects, designers and critics explore how the way we work is changing and its impact on our city.
To save you from some very sore feet, we’ve rounded up the highlights.
Installation: New Horizon – Irish Design
Two temporary pavilions have sprung up in Lewis Cubitt Square as part of the LFA’s special Irish focus. Designed by architects Clancy Moore, Hall McKnight, Steve Larkin and TAKA, they will host a string of talks, performances and events exploring the country’s contemporary design scene. The architects will also discuss their work and Ireland’s architectural future at the Design Museum on 17 June.
1-24 June; Lewis Cubitt Square, King’s Cross, N1C 4UZ
Workshop: Shooting architecture
For those wishing to take their Instagram feeds to the next level, the AA is doing a special workshop on the basics of shooting buildings with your phone.
7-9pm, June 4; Architectural Association School of Architecture, 36 Bedford Square, WC1B 3ES
Open Studio: Milk architecture & design – the evolution of Shoreditch
As part of RIBA’s open studios programme, Milk will be discussing the evolution of Shoreditch, from run-down, post-industrial enclave to the centre of the creative and tech industries. With residential towers, sleek offices and luxury hotels popping up between its converted victorian warehouses, will Shoreditch will still be the same when these new buildings ‘hatch from their hoardings?’
2pm, 4 June; Milk Architecture & Design, 342 Old Street, EC1V 9DS
Exhibition: Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts
More than 1,200 works will spill out from the Royal Academy later this week when it opens its annual Summer Exhibition – the world’s oldest open-submission show. Ian Ritchie RA is curating the Architecture Room, cryptically titled ‘Inventive Landscapes’.
8 June-16 August; Main galleries, Burlington House, Piccadilly, W1J 0BD
Exhibition: The Brutalist Playground
Come and play the Brutalist way at the RIBA, where Turner Prize-nominated architecture collective Assemble and artist Simon Terrill are creating a foam landscape that draws on the abstract concrete playgrounds designed for post-war housing estates.
10 June – 14 August; The Architecture Gallery, RIBA, 66 Portland Place, W1B 1AD
Talk: Ebbsfleet Garden City – a work in progress
Director of The Architecture Foundation Ellis Woodman will be discussing plans for Ebbsfleet’s garden city with its masterplanner, Louise Wyman. Together, they will explore how this storied model of urban planning is being updated for the 21st century.
6.30pm, 16 June; hosted by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, 5-23 Old Street London, EC1V 9HL
Talk: Is work killing us?
A panel of experts will discuss the workplace revolution at the Zaha Hadid-designed Roca Gallery. Do spaces for informal encounters really lead to new ideas and innovation? And if we hate cubicles, do we want a totally open plan? These are just some of the questions that Jeremy Myerson, Nicola Osborn, Andreas Klok Pedersen and Martha Thorne will chew over.
6.30 – 9pm, 17 June; Roca London Gallery, Station Court, Townmead Road, SW6 2PY
Tour: From Olympicopolis to Bow
With Olympicopolis in the headlines and new cultural institutions set to open their doors over the coming years, Delvendhal Martin will lead a timely walking tour along Stratford High Street, pointing out ‘the good, the bad and the ugly’, and asking whether the area is set for a ‘new dawn or nightmare’.
1pm, 20 June; meeting at the fountains next to the Arcelor Mittal Orbit, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, 3 Thornton Street, Stratford, E20 2AD
Talk: SelgasCano in conversation
Spanish architects José Selgas and Lucía Cano will discuss their designs for the 2015 Serpentine Pavilion – a giant, multi-coloured chrysalis taking shape in Hyde Park – with gallery directors Julia Peyton-Jones and Hans Ulrich Obrist.
2.30pm, 23 June; Serpentine Galleries, Kensington Gardens, W2 3XA
Screenings: Architecture on Film: The Machine Stops + Fortress of Solitude
The Architecture Foundation will screen two films at the Barbican Centre exploring the rise of the mechanised home. In Fortress of Solitude, design research studio Space Caviar probe the future of the ‘smart home’, while Philip Saville’s 1966 film, The Machine Stops – based on E M Forster’s short story of the same name – inhabits a post-apocalyptic future where humans live underground in isolated cells.
6.30pm, 23 June; The Barbican Centre, Silk Street, EC2Y 8DS
