ATHABASCA – Athabasca University (AU) is offering a free lecture series about architecture for anyone who wants to participate.
Members of the public can join architecture students to gain knowledge and insight into the latest trends in style and building material in the Global Studio Lecture Series and it is open to anyone around the world with hundreds of people taking part every month.
“We've been doing online (lectures) for a couple of years with other partners but the COVID-19 definitely accelerated our efforts in this regard,” said Dr. Douglas MacLeod, the interim dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology.
Faculty at AU’s RAIC (Royal Architectural Institute of Canada) Centre for Architecture co-created the online lecture series to supplement courses and provide learners unique access to globally recognized architects, while also providing professional-development opportunities for professional architects.
“For an architect in Alberta, every year they have to accumulate a number of continuing education credit points and we're offering them for free and virtual. For working professionals who are locked down right now this is a tremendous value proposition,” he said.
The lectures focus on sustainability and regenerative design, and are beneficial for anyone interested or working in urban and construction planning and design.
“We're trying to pioneer something called regenerative design, where we're thinking about buildings and communities that can generate save more energy than they consume, purify more water than they pollute, sequester more carbon than they emit, and even recycle more materials than they send to the landfill,” said MacLeod.
Starting this year's series in May was architect Odile Decq, the founder of Studio Odile Decq and the Confluence Institute in Paris, France. Decq has been dubbed the punk rock architect and is known both for her personal fashion and her the urban planning, architecture, design and art that goes into her work.
That was followed by ‘Green Building: Integrating Architecture and Engineering,’ ‘Mass Timber’ and ‘Drawing Creepy Places: Representing Liminal Ritual Spaces of Kuruman - South Africa.’
“(The sequence of lectures) is very carefully designed to build on everything else, be connected to everything else and be shared around the world,” MacLeod said.
And over the past year there have been 488 unique students either studying architecture specifically at AU or taking a class here and there simply out of interest.
“That's incredibly good for the profession. And that's something no other architecture school can really offer because other architecture schools may take in 50 new students a year in a cohort, and there's just no extra space in those classes for people who might have an interest in architecture. So, we can and we do,” he said.
MacLeod added that they are submitting a proposal that, if successful, means the RAIC Centre for Architecture at AU will be doing a year’s worth of activities starting in October that expands on the lectures with workshops and a sketching camp. They are even keeping an eye on the virtual co-op taking place in the Faculty of Business and hope to adapt it for use in their own courses.
“(AU) is an extraordinary place — I say place, but it's online; it is a place in my mind — because it can help so many people fulfill their dreams in ways that no other university in Canada really can. People all over the world are taking note of what's happening at Athabasca University and it's been a wonderful experience of reaching out and even getting recognition for what we're doing.”
The next lecture, ‘DEGROWTH: Rethink / Redesign / Reuse / Recycle' is Aug. 6 from 9-10:30 a.m. and you can sign up at http://architecture.athabascau.ca/news/index.php#degrowth or, watch any of the lectures on the RAIC YouTube channel called RAIC Centre for Architecture at Athabasca University.
Heather Stocking, TownandCountryToday.com
Follow me on Twitter @HLSox
