RCA master show

loved the craftworked goldsmithying, ceramics (above - the room was incredible), glasswork... but thought that for Master's projects the architectural ones were a bit ... populist.  They lacked real intellectual rigour.  The prize winning headline project consisted of theoretical Free Aid Zones - the idea being that in the future aid would be privatised and deserving countries would come and compete for it in specially designated zones, showing off their need... load of gumph if you ask me and the visualisations were just a load of shapes. 

AA summer show

some selected pics... looking back at these, i must admit, if we had the money they have at the AA it would help produce some better stuff (like this 2 ft high 3D printed thing...)

UEL

Summer show was pretty impressive considering how isolated they are.  A lot of good quality down to earth projects, great modelling and good exhibition space.  They had also maintained a high level of hand crafted skills which I thought was great, and something the AA seemed to lack.  Some really well down sketchbooks with water colours brought the whole idea of projects together, simply.

Architecture School's Summer Shows

The AA's got a great show this year, especially some diploma work on the ground floor.  One particular project is an epic collection of models, drawings, video, soundeffects... Creating the entire environment of the site specific to an Australian outback missile testing range in the corner of a Georgian terrace... amazing.
The work was good, and there was a good depth and breadth to the projects, but there was also a huge evidence of the support the school gives the students in terms of presenting the work they produce.  Custom-built rooms within rooms, lighting, new spaces... all are provided to best show off individual projects and sometimes even individual drawings.  A huge range of media and focus on the quality of the finished article was obvious.  You don't get that at South Bank.  There the lecturers were still haphazardly pinning up bits of work to old, whitewashed boards 5 minutes before the start of the Show.  No differentiation, no attention to detail - an unreferenced splurge of work.  Don't get me wrong... they didn't have much to work with.

Factoid

Currently China has more than 200 buildings over 500ft (152m) tall under construction – equivalent to the total number of existing skyscrapers in the United States.

wtf?

so all of a sudden we are going to have UK jets bombing Libya?  Stopping attacks against civilians?  And how exactly are they going to identify a jeep full of Gaddafi's soldiers driving along a motorway from 35,000 ft?  totally pointless...

We ostracise Gaddafi's terrorist state, then, when his oil infrastructure improves and he realises just how much money he can make by towing the line a little, we let him into the international club - with no improvement in the political freedoms or lack of internal repression in the country.  But he's stopped bombing airliners, which is nice and given us the guy he ordered to do it, to sit in prison.  And then all of a sudden it looks like we might get a democratic, non-Islamist revolution there - whoohoo - so we jump behind that and the whole thing implodes, back to square 1.  Well done us, nice consistent morals we displayed there and propped up his regime as he made a few quid from the oil in the meantime.

And what about other countries that are committing human rights abuses, which we are not hearing anything about?  I don't see Cameron pushing for a no-fly zone over Yemen or Bahrain.  The double standards are incredible, and yet... its probably a good thing to see.  It makes you realise that the world is not a nice place and that our government, along with EVERYONE else's, is looking out for their own interests.

You won't see a similar reaction in the Gulf, with Bahrain, because it would put too much pressure on Saudi, and we need the Saudis.  We need their oil and we need their Sunni stability to counterbalance the threat of Iran.  And if we think Gaddafi is not a nice guy, then don't it only gets worse with the Iranians government.

If there's anything to learn from this whole fucking mess, its that if we had maintained a consistent, principled stance the whole time and continued to demand political reform and freedoms for everyone in each of the countries, through the UN, with everyone using that as the proper channel, as we're supposed to do, we probably wouldn't have such a totally screwed up situation right now.  We are half to blame for this whole thing and Cameron standing up there, saying "we won't stand for this kind of thing..." is just a total load of hypocritical shit.