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From: PRESS RELEASE Category: Press Release Date: 02 June 2009 Time: 08:42 AM Review: Press release Thursday 7 May 2009 Contact: Jenny Peterson, Press & Communications Officer, RIBA South East 01892 515878 jenny.peterson@inst.riba.org Architects rally to promote the profession, through the south east Festival of Architecture Architects across the south east have seized the opportunity to promote their profession and their work through the south east Festival of Architecture, organised by RIBA South East with the Solent Centre for Architecture + Design (SCA+D) from 20 May to 28 June. Around a dozen of the 80 events listed on www.festivalofarchitecture.org on the theme of ‘Better places, better spaces’ will be run by architects – mostly tours of recently-completed buildings, all free of charge for visitors. Recently-completed buildings talks and tours In Berkshire, local architects Corrigan + Soundy + Kilaiditi will talk/tour around the new nursery building at Upton House School in Windsor. Architects of Kent buildings are amongst the keenest to show the public round their projects. Alison Brooks Architects will conduct tours of Quarterhouse, the entertainment/events venue in Folkestone. Stay at the seaside to hear Niall McLaughlin Architects’ talk about Deal Pier Café, at the venue; and tour the new business centre in the Grade II* Listed Joiners Shop in The Historic Dockyard, Chatham with Baynes and Mitchell Architects. You will be welcomed to Crossway in Staplehurst, the pioneering eco-house with timbrel vaulted roof featured recently on Grand Designs, by its owner and architect, Richard Hawkes. Visit far smaller houses in King’s Wood near Challock, where Consarc Architects with artists London Fieldworks have created ‘unique animal residences based on despots’ palaces’. In Oxfordshire, Rick Mather will discuss the past, present and future architecture of the Ashmolean, as his practice undertakes the £61million refurbishment of the Museum. His lecture will be at the Taylorian Institution Library in Oxford. Also in Oxford, local architects Berman Guedes Stretton present ‘Dreaming spires: but what about the streets?’, their ideas for enlivening Oxford’s public spaces. Cornerstone, the new community arts centre in Didcot, will be talk/toured by Ellis Williams Architects. In East Sussex, tours of Towner, the venue in Eastbourne which opened last month, will be undertaken by Rick Mather Architects. RIBA Sussex Branch’s Architects in Sussex exhibition will showcase local practices’ work, at the offices of solicitors DMH Stallard in Queens Road, Brighton. Architects compile local photo quizzes In towns all over the south east, architects have been snapping photos of building details for the ‘look up, look around’ family quizzes downloadable from www.festivalofarchitecture.org . Answers, in the form of whole-building photos, will be available on the website from mid-June. Richard Hawkes, architect/owner of Crossway, says of the south east Festival of Architecture: "The Festival is a brilliant opportunity for architects of buildings in the south east to let people experience perspectives on architecture that would be otherwise off-limits.’ Architects and other organisers can still register their events for the south east Festival of Architecture on www.festivalofarchitecture.org – click on ‘Get Involved’. A further theme of the south east Festival of Architecture is ‘Architects and Artists’, celebrating mutual inspiration. There will be several opportunities to visit the University of Oxford’s Department of Biochemistry building, by Hawkins/Brown Architects: the practice collaborated with the artists and Department’s researchers who created the Salt Bridges art commissions, managed by Artpoint, on display throughout the building. A number of artists who are deeply interested in, and interpret, architecture and the built environment are taking part in the Festival; and the website features the work of artists who have worked with architects. RIBA South East and SCA+D co-ordinated last year’s highly successful architecture08 festival across the region, which was funded by Arts Council England, South East following the cessation of the nationwide Architecture Week, which ran from 1997 to 2007. No funding was received from ACE SE for the south east Festival of Architecture: the Arts Council is currently undergoing major restructuring of its regions. Further Festival fun for architects During the south east Festival of Architecture, a workshop by architectural photographer Jo Andreae in Reading will offer hints and tips on taking better images of modern architecture. You can visit Quarterhouse in Folkestone to create and decorate your own tiny cardboard flat-packed house in a perfectly-formed miniature community. Home Sweet Home’s cardboard city will feature a postal service, radio station and even a local council: the perfect antidote to designing full-sized buildings and dealing with full-sized planners./ends