AT reports back from the UK Architecture Showcase: a two-day event which was hosted this week at the British Embassy in Paris.
Photos
Department for Business and Trade – France
& Grace, Eva and Darcie Pabla Thomas
This week the British Embassy in Paris hosted UK Architecture Showcase, a celebration of the UK’s “transformative and trail-blazing” architects and engineers. Organised by the Department for Business and Trade, the event offered an opportunity for practices to present their work to (mostly) French investors, contractors, policy-makers and clients. It also gave those in attendance the chance to mingle with UK politicians including Deputy Trade Commissioner Europe and Director for International Trade UK-France Jo Hawley, HM Trade Commissioner for Europe Chris Barton and Gareth Thomas, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for Services, Small Businesses and Exports) at the Department for Business and Trade.
Participating architecture practices included Bennetts Associates, Grimshaw, RSHP, WilkinsonEyre, HawkinsBrown, GROUPWORK, David Kohn, Stanton Williams, Foster + Partners, Zaha Hadid Architects, Design International, Allies & Morrison, WW+P and Mamou-Mani. Engineers included Atelier One, Buro Happold, Eckersley O’Callaghan, Price & Myers, Mott MacDonald and Webb Yates.
Many of the architects opted to highlight their expertise in a particular sector. Sebastian Ricard from WilkinsonEyre presented Battersea Power Station to show the practice’s expertise in integrating industrial heritage within urban regeneration projects. Rob Naybour from WW+P showed a series of infrastructure and transport projects, concluding with a prediction that, in the future, cities will be judged as much for their transport and infrastructure hubs as for their ancient monuments. Nick Gaskell from HawkinsBrown focussed on the practice’s portfolio of workplace-led urban regeneration projects.
The Stonemasonry Company teamed up with Webb Yates engineers and Amin Taha’s GROUPWORK to present their work on prefabricated off-site solutions for load-bearing and post-tensioned stone structures, and to communicate their prediction/determination that pretensioned stone-and-timber hybrid structures will gradually replace concrete and steel frames as the norm for infrastructure and buildings. Neil Thomas, from structural engineering firm Atelier One, emphasised the vital importance of partnerships and collaboration in the battle to avert climate catastrophe. The practice has taken a stake in a company that delivers affordable bamboo housing and is working with international governments to develop the necessary regulatory frameworks and expertise to accelerate the use of engineered bamboo.
Part trade show, part diplomatic soirée, the event had a slightly surreal quality, perhaps best described as Merchant Ivory meets MIPIM.
You can see for yourself from the photos in the carousel below.
Source: Architecture Today
