Constructing Realities Lecture Series 2025-26

Reading the Ruin: Approaches to Repair, Manipulation and Interference  

Working with existing buildings is often misunderstood as cautious or conservative, and too often treated as separate from architectural practice rather than as one of its core specialisms. Drawing on the work and professional background of Julian Harrap, the lecture traces key moments in British conservation culture, from Morris and the Anti-Scrape Movement to post-war legislation, SAVE, and the influence of the National Amenity Societies. 

Through debates on the reinvention of history and case studies including the Soane Museum and Smithfield Market, it examines how research, documentation, and ideology shape conservation decisions, exploring conservation as an active, contested architectural discipline continually negotiated between history, ethics, and contemporary use. 

Speakers

Julian Harrap CBE trained at Regents' Street Polytechnic, establishing a practice in East London some 50 years ago. While training, he was influenced by James Gowan, James Stirling, Eldred Evans, Eva Jiricna and Neave Brown. With a background in designing modern buildings, he brought an analytical constructional understanding to existing structures, ruins, and abandoned buildings. The practice has enjoyed long associations with the Lesley Martin, James Stirling, David Chipperfield, and Norman Foster. Sustained collaborations have been achieved with clients such as the National Trust, The Church of England, the Royal Academy of Arts, Sir John Soane's Museum, the Victoria & Albert Museum and many other Custodians of Cultural Buildings and Landscapes. Current projects include the New London Museum in Smithfield, Museum Mayer van der Bergh and the Bourla Theatre in Antwerp. 

Iga Martynow trained as an architect at the the Barlett and has been with the practice for more than five years, working closely on the New London Museum at Smithfield as well as cultural projects in Antwerp, Belgium. 

How to join

In-person at Room 400, 7 Sidings Street, UCL East Marshgate, London E20 2AE

Larger Passivhaus Projects: Something old, something new, something borrowed, don't feel blue

In this talk, Gwilym Still will look at a range of Passivhaus case studies, from new build to retrofit, offices to multi-residential, and medium sized to large developments. This will include all-electric student accommodation projects using CLT as the primary structure, retrofit offices working hard to minimise operation and embodied carbon, and multiple iterations of multi-residential projects both in and out of London. It will cover both the implementation of Passivhaus principles from design through delivery, look at post-occupancy performance and how it’s informing future projects, and compare performance with the Net Zero Carbon Building standard. 

Speaker

Gwilym Still has helped drive the adoption of Passivhaus within the UK construction industry, particularly on larger projects, raising its profile and helping to train future Passivhaus designers. He’s Max Fordham's Passivhaus Director, a Passivhaus certifier and designer. 
 
Gwilym has MEP and Passivhaus experience across a range of scales and typologies, new build and retrofit, including the residential Passivhaus proof-of-concept at Agar Grove, the EnerPHit retrofit of the Entopia Building for the University of Cambridge; and the CIBSE Building Performance Award-winning Cranmer Road student accommodation. 
 
Gwilym is a member of the Passivhaus Trust Technical Panel, a trustee of the Cambridge Forum for the Construction Industry, a trustee of the AECB, and leads Max Fordham’s International Outreach Group. 

How to join

In-person at Room 400, 7 Sidings Street, UCL East Marshgate, London E20 2AE

The Façade Engineering of Stratford Waterfront

This lecture will explore the principles of modern façade engineering, and the varying requirements that need to be balanced in the design of challenging high-performance envelopes. It will consider the range of materials used in the construction of facades, and the evolution of use of traditional materials and construction methods in contemporary architecture. These themes will be explored in the case studies of the buildings in Stratford Waterfront – located across the Olympic Park from Marshgate, the project includes the new dance theatre of Sadler’s Wells and the soon to open V&A East art gallery, designed by O’Donnell and Tuomey Architects and the engineers Buro Happold.

Speaker

Peter Goff is a Director in Buro Happold’s London Façade Engineering Team, and specialises in the development of bespoke facades posing technical, material and buildability challenges. Over his career Peter has developed the façade design of a range of unique and complex projects in the UK and across the world, collaborating with architects including Kengo Kuma, O’Donnell and Tuomey, Grafton, and David Chipperfield. Peter led the façade engineering team for Stratford Waterfront, and is currently leading Buro Happold’s façade engineering team on the renewal of the Barbican Arts Centre with Allies and Morrison and Asif Khan Architects. Peter is a chartered engineer with the ICE and CIBSE, and sits on the Board of the Society of Façade Engineering.

How to join

In-person at Room 400, 7 Sidings Street, UCL East Marshgate, London E20 2AE

Making Architecture – In Context

This lecture explores how context—built, social, historical, and demographic—shapes the design philosophy and practice of Alison Brooks Architects. It reflects on how architecture can meaningfully respond to place and community while creating buildings of enduring cultural value. The talk examines the interplay between contextual sensitivity and contemporary design ambitions, highlighting projects that embody this approach. At the same time, it addresses the pressing challenges of practicing architecture today, including the imperatives of building safety, climate responsibility, and resilience, and how these shape both the ethics and the future direction of architectural practice.

Speaker

Michael Mueller is a Board Director at Alison Brooks Architects with exceptional project management skills and experience delivering large scale projects internationally and in the Higher Education sector.

Michael was the Project Architect for the completion stages of the Cohen Quad, Exeter College Oxford, recipient of a 2021 Civic Trust Award and 2021 RIBA South Building of the Year. He has also worked closely with the University of Cambridge, as Project Director, to deliver Knights Park and Rubicon of the Eddington Masterplan, made up of 394 units with significant shared study and mixed-use space. This groundbreaking net-zero operational carbon development received Sustainable Development of the Year and the inaugural Building with Nature Award in 2021.

In the residential sector he has delivered ABA’s landmark King’s Cross project Cadence from competition design to completion. Michael has played a key role on further residential and mixed-use projects, including the recently completed One Ashley Road in Tottenham Hale, London UK.

Michael has worked at ABA for many years but was previously an Associate Partner at Foster + Partners, where he led schemes in Sweden, Morocco, China, and London.

How to join

In-person at Room 400, 7 Sidings Street, UCL East Marshgate, London E20 2AE

A Way Ahead

In his lecture A Way Ahead, Andrew Waugh will explore Waugh Thistleton Architects approach to the construction of architecture, via innovation, collaboration and research.  The lecture will include the award winning Black & White Building. The simplicity of this fully engineered timber office building belies its groundbreaking innovation. Setting a powerful sustainable agenda with only 410 kgCO2e/m2 embodied carbon (A1-A5), material use has been optimised. Each component is designed to be as efficient as possible, resulting in an honest design without excess. 

Speaker

Waugh Thistleton Architects is a London based architectural practice producing thoughtful and sustainable projects both locally and internationally. The practice is a world leader in engineered timber and pioneer in the field of tall timber buildings. 

Founding partners, Andrew Waugh and Anthony Thistleton, met studying architecture at Kingston University in 1991, and established Waugh Thistleton in 1997. Always interested in developing new ways of building, in 2003 they built their first CLT building, and since then have established an expertise in timber design and construction. Their shared spirit of invention unites and forms the core ethos of the practice. This collaborative approach is also informed by research projects. 

How to join

In-person at Room 400, 7 Sidings Street, UCL East Marshgate, London E20 2AE

Rethinking sustainability - have we lost our way? Lecture by Klaus Bode

"It seems to me that we are in a period of chasing words or catch phrases in design – ‘zero carbon’, ‘timber is good, concrete is bad’, ‘photovoltaics’, ‘health and well-being’ are almost the go-to vocabulary of today. We can debate as to why this is the case, but it is clear that such an approach is both misleading and potentially dangerous. Where is the space for ‘thought’ and time for ‘reflection’? Have we lost the power of ‘observation’? Are we still finding space and time for exchanging ideas and debate, or are we now simply presenting our individual work, only for the Architect to abstract what seems interesting or appealing? Architecture works best when it is integrated, when structure, environment and experience are conceived as one. Integration is an act of humility, where purpose stands greater than ego. With over 35 years working in the field of environmental and building services design, being part of multiple multi-disciplinary design teams engaged in a wide range of international projects, Klaus will demonstrate how integrated design through genuine collaboration, delivers both elegance and sustainable design solutions."

Speaker

Klaus Bode is a Founding Director at Klaus Bode Consultancy (KBCo) with over 35 years of experience in environmental and building services engineering design. A graduate of the University of Bath, he began his career at J Roger Preston & Partners before co-founding several consultancies, including BDSP Partnership, ChapmanBDSP and Urban Systems Design. His approach places environmental thinking and close collaboration with architects and clients at the centre of every project. Klaus develops integrated, low energy design strategies that bridge engineering, environment and architecture, combining clear analysis, practical application and contextual understanding to deliver simple yet effective solutions across diverse international projects.

How to join

In-person at Room 400, 7 Sidings Street, UCL East Marshgate, London E20 2AE

SELF<>BUILD

SELF<>BUILD is a deliberately ambiguous and reflexive term, connoting the hands-on challenges of building a one-off house project and at the same time the creation of either a personal or company identity or design process. How you control, maintain and evolve a unique architectural voice in the saturated world of insta and dezeen is one of the challenges of growing a practice. This will become even more challenging in the accelerating age of AI.  

As a practice we are stimulated by the things we see and touch and so an appreciation of craft, materiality and cultural resonance permeates our work. We aim to create tactile and sculptural projects that respond to wider climate focused themes such as material use, production process and carbon impact.

Speaker

Graeme Williamson Architects is an award winning design practice based in East London. Established in 2018, the company works across a range of sectors including Residential, Arts and Energy projects. In recent years, GWA has become known for designing sustainable, one off, private houses, being shortlisted for the AJ Manser Medal and winning Individual House Architect of the Year Award at the AYA in 2025. 

How to join

In-person at Room 400, 7 Sidings Street, UCL East Marshgate, London E20 2AE

Lithic Chords

'Constructing Realities' explores 'Lithic Chords', a 21-metre post-tensioned stone structure presented the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025. Conceived as a diapason, it challenges the perception of stone as static, revealing it instead as flexible, interactive, and sonorous. Formed by diverse stone fragments from different geologies and origins, the work merges architecture, sound, and engineering into a living instrument where tension and compression become both structure and harmony. Through two perspectives - architectural and structural - we retrace how matter, resonance, and equilibrium were composed into a single chord. The lecture reflects on constructing not only a physical structure, but a shared space of wonder between geology and human experience. 

Speakers

Cristina Morbi is a London-based landscape architect, designer, and researcher. She is the founder and director of Maetherea, a multidisciplinary practice exploring the intersections of landscape architecture, art, and ecology through time-based design. Her work reimagines matter as a living, performative medium shaped by natural forces and human interaction. Projects include Lithic Chords (Venice Architecture Biennale 2025), Ruderal Calligraphies (Verona 2025), Iron Reef (Norfolk Way Art Trail 2023), and Kaleidosteeple (Croydon 2024). She lectures at The Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL), where her research focuses on Design Phenology, the evolving relationship between material, environment, and time. 

Francesco Banchini is a structural engineer with a degree in Civil Engineering from Roma Tre University (2016). Born in 1990, he moved to England in September 2017, where he worked as a Senior Engineer for Ove Arup & Partners in the London office.  Since September 2024, he has been working with Schlaich Bergermann Partners in Stuttgart as a Project Manager in Engineering.  

In the academic field, Francesco has taught at both architecture and engineering faculties in various universities across England. In 2024, he was a lecturer in the Architecture-Engineering program at the Bartlett School of Architecture.  Francesco specialises in the design of complex structures, operating at the intersection of architecture and engineering. As a designer, he strives to create simple, efficient, and elegant solutions by harmonizing structural forces with design imperatives such as aesthetics, functionality, and feasibility.  

How to join

In-person at Room 400, 7 Sidings Street, UCL East Marshgate, London E20 2AE

Engineering a Better Society

In this lecture, Gary Elliott explores how designers can create positive impact across their practice, the wider industry and society through intentional choices in how they work. The talk reflects on Elliott Wood’s journey from business as usual to a purpose-led practice, guided by an ambition to engineer a better society. Through projects including 30 Duke Street and 20 Giltspur Street, and initiatives such as Society Building, Gary demonstrates how small mindset shifts, supported by cross-industry collaboration, can positively shape the built environment and deliver meaningful outcomes for people and planet.

Speaker

Gary Elliott co-founded Elliott Wood in 1994 and is its Founder and CEO. He provides entrepreneurial leadership, shaping the practice’s culture, strategic direction and governance, while remaining closely connected to its day-to-day work. Gary champions the practice’s purpose to Engineer a Better Society, challenging the industry to think more responsibly about its impact. His project experience includes the transformation of the Grade II* listed Old War Office into Raffles London at The OWO, winner of the 2024 AHEAD Europe Hotel of the Year Award, and 30 Duke Street, the UK’s largest steel reuse project. Gary is a Fellow of the Institution of Structural Engineers and a former co-chair of Structural Engineers Declare.

How to join

In-person at Room 400, 7 Sidings Street, UCL East Marshgate, London E20 2AE