This year at Ecobuild Kingston University’s Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture will be launching a brand new version of the rematerialise website  rematerialise.org. This new website is the on-line portal to rematerialise; the sustainable materials library developed by Jakki Dehn, Reader in Sustainable Design over the last 18 years. It is highly regarded by architects and designers as one of the field’s leading resources. The site provides an easy-access overview of the environmental benefits of a wide range of materials and allows users to see colour ranges and company contact information.

The physical library, now housed in the Design School at Kingston University, is a catalyst for innovation and collaboration. This collection enables industry professionals, educators, researchers, students and anyone with a need to know more about ecologically responsible design to see and handle materials that use fewer non-renewable resources, materials that can be re-grown and materials that are often overlooked.

On Stand S663 this year Jakki Dehn will be showcasing the latest range of materials developed from renewable resources including hemp flooring, bio plastic composites and corn starch packaging.

Visit Jakki Dehn and the Rematerialise team on stand S663 to see these new materials or make an appointment to view over 1,200 material samples from 22 countries by e-mailing rematerialise@kingston.ac.uk

The 2012 Civic Trust Award winners have been chosen, with Kingston alumnus David Chipperfield and Kingston lecturer Adam Khan bagging two gongs each.

Chipperfield’s Hepworth Gallery was chosen as the jury’s favourite project, while Adam Khan’s Brockholes Visitor Centre won the special award for sustainability.

Studio Weaves’ Longest Bench, in Littlehampton, took the special award for community impact and engagement; and Gareth Hoskins’ revamp of the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh won the special award for Scotland.

Malcolm Hankey, managing director of the awards, said: “The Civic Trust Awards celebrate not only design excellence, but also the relationship between structures, places, the environment and communities. Winning projects have demonstrated architectural excellence whilst offering cultural, social or economic benefit to the local community.”

The Michael Middleton special award for a restoration project or new-build in a conservation area was given to Eric Parry’s Holbourne Museum of Art in Bath.

For more information please visit:

http://www.civictrustawards.org.uk/

British Waterways has commissioned Kingston University’s Landscape interface Studio to develop a ‘Waterways Forward’ social network to support the communication and dissemination of the EU ‘Waterways Forward’ project.

‘Waterways Forward’ is an EU project funded through the European Region Development Fund.  The main objective of the project is to improve the management of regional inland waterways and the regions adjacent to them by promoting an integrated, sustainable and participatory approach. The project aims at developing recommendations for improved and state of the art governance models that are creating a sound basis for more integrated regional policies to boost the socio/economic development of inland waterways and adjacent areas in a balanced way, while respecting nature and environment .

Landscape Interface Studio has secured a contract to set up the following suite of sites which provide different platforms to market the project and these will be updated regularly with news, views and information.

• the WF blog http://waterwaysforward.wordpress.com/ – this site posts videos, photos, interviews, documents, and project/partner information.   In addition, the blog features a Waterways Forward interactive Google map with information on all the projects outputs embedded into the map.

• ‘Waterways Forward’ Linkedin group

• Twitter account  @waterwayforward

In our digital driven age, is print with its varying forms relevant to the progression of contemporary design? Kingston Design students respond to what print means to them and the evolving industry, which has traditionally seen print as an integral part of its output. 

The response to this project, which started as a discussion about print within our industry and its relevance to their generation, has escalated into an insightful and intelligent series of surprising outcomes.

The student’s ambition has resulted in an exhibition and future publication that we genuinely feel is special, highly relevant and showcases a new generation of designers and illustrators who are thinking beyond the edges of Design, Education, and Print.

The exhibition takes place in Stour Space, in Hackney Wick, which overlooks the Olympic stadium and park.

EDGE
Private View: Thursday 1st March – 6pm onwards
Daily opening hours 9am-5pm
Open until 2nd April

www.theedgeofprint.tumblr.com

Stour Space
7 Roach Road
Fish Island
E3 2PA

Space Narratives: a photographic exhibition by fifteen students from the School of Architecture & Landscape will open at the Knights Park Campus gallery, Platform on Tuesday 28 February 2012 at 6.00pm.  The exhibition will run until 17 March 2012.

Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture, Kingston University, Knights Park Campus, Kingston upon Thames KT1 2QJ.

CREATIVE EDUCATION NETWORKING EVENT AT THE STANLEY PICKER GALLERY

Wednesday 29 February, between 4.30-7pm

Funded by an Art Council Grant for the Arts, LONSAS are hosting a twilight event in the local borough of Kingston for teachers to meet a wide variety of local creative practitioners and cultural organisations. At the event you will be able to:

*   Gain CPD

*   Get Artsmark advice & support

*   Join the Art & cultural taster activities

*   Gather information for organising trips & visiting artists

*   Incorporate the arts across your curriculum

*   Attend talks & tours of venues (with complimentary drinks)

*   Discover ways to promote Equality & Diversity, Inclusivity, Progression, Environmental Responsibility through the arts

Join us for a free, informal opportunity to learn new creative skills, share experiences and form partnerships. All teachers, art educators, creative practitioners, and representatives from local cultural organisations are welcome to attend.

Details of the event can be found on the LONSAS website http://www.lonsas.org.uk/events_detail.aspx?id=3940

RSVP HERE http://www.lonsas.org.uk/form.aspx?ID=102

Please feel free share this information with your friends and colleagues, and to contact Natalie Kay on n.kay@kingston.ac.uk or Thalia Wood at thalia@lonsas.org.uk should you have any questions.

We look forward to welcoming you!

The Stanley Picker Gallery and LONSAS teams.

c/o Natalie Kay

Participation Programmer, Stanley Picker Gallery Faculty of Art Design & Architecture Kingston University, Knights Park Kingston upon Thames KT1 2QJ

t:  020 8417 4074/ 07974625586

e: n.kay@kingston.ac.uk

www.stanleypickergallery.org

www.lonsas.org.uk

Kingston alumni and eco designer  Osian Batyka-Williams is being featured in the new advertising campaign by shoe company New Balance as one of their ‘Excellent Makers’. Osian now works as an industrial designer, furniture maker, teacher and builder and believes in utilizing eco-friendly practices as often as possible— with most of his pieces featuring recycled and/or reclaimed materials.

As part of the campaign, Osian be working with them on various projects and producing some commission pieces over the next twelve month.

To see the campaign and to find out more, please visit:

http://www.newbalance.com/facebook/excellent-makers/excellent-maker-osian.php

TONIGHT – Thursday 23 February 2012, 7pm.

Ernst Eisenmayer’s vivid writings offer a fascinating insight into the chance meetings and friendships forged during internment on the Isle of Man and his early years in London as an artist. The series of short narratives recall his involvement with the Austrian Centre, conversations with Oskar Kokoschka in his Park Lane studio and Eisenmayer’s passion for the metropolis and its inhabitants.

The reading accompanies the retrospective exhibition of Austrian painter and sculptor Ernst Eisenmayer whose works explore issues of place, encounters and memory, and offer a powerful insight into the complex and multi-sited trajectories of an émigré artist in the twentieth and early twenty-first century.

Exhibition curated by Professor Fran Lloyd of Visual & Material Culture Research Centre

Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture

Entry is free T 020 7225 7300

E office@acflondon.org

Venue:
Austrian Cultural Forum London
28 Rutland Gate
London SW7 1PQ

Exhibiting their latest creations at London Fashion Week can be a dream come true for even the most established of fashion designers. So a group of 18 Kingston University fashion students could hardly believe their luck when they found their work in the limelight at one of the industry’s most prestigious events just a few months into the first year of their degree.

After teaming up with top British artist and designer Dr Noki, they have just showcased their work as part of London Fashion Week’s Estethica exhibition. The ethical showcase, which celebrates designers who reuse, reinvent and recycle, played home to the students’ creations which gave a quirky lease of life to old items of clothing.

“The starting point for the project was inspired by a book Dr Noki showed us called Not a Toy,” 19-year-old student Steph Smith explained. “It was full of genderless, faceless characters which is what we wanted to create using the old clothing that we sourced.”

All 55 first year students promptly set to work gathering items of clothing from attics and charity shops, grouping garments that would work together to help them create a series of towering textile creations, dubbed fashion couture monsters in Dr Noki’s design brief.

“We worked in pairs taking the discarded clothes apart and then set about piecing them together into something new,” fellow student Juan Torkel Spade, 22, said. “My partner Rene Bedell and I tried shredding and unravelling knit pieces, also knitting our own individual sleeves and trouser legs to incorporate into our design.”

The design process was different to what they were used to. “I usually build something up after working with a sketch and trying out different pattern cutting techniques,” Argentinean-born Juan said.

The students’ even had the chance to bring some of their creations to life in a film screened during London Fashion Week. “Finally wearing our work and being a physical part of it was really exciting,” Steph said. “Seeing it beamed on to the big screen in the main courtyard at Somerset House was amazing and totally unexpected.”

Dr Noki who is well known for pushing the boundaries of design with his NHS (Noki’s House of Sustainability) brand of customised clothing and sustainable silhouettes, praised the young designers for their energy and enthusiasm. “I like to teach students how to balance the need for change through fashion textiles, but keeping the emphasis purely on creative design. I feel this is paramount at such a young age,” he said.

The results were extremely impressive, Dr Noki added. “All the students worked incredibly hard during the project,” he said. “It wasn’t always my intention to exhibit so many of their designs but, thanks to the British Fashion Council’s Estethica platform, the project has been pushed further, wider and faster than I ever imagined.”

Course director Elinor Renfrew said the collaboration really encouraged the students to stretch themselves. “Graduate Fashion Week has always been an excellent opportunity for us to showcase our work, but for our first years to be exhibiting their designs with Dr Noki at London Fashion Week was absolutely fantastic,” she said. “The way the students worked together and responded to a brief with a very tight deadline was phenomenal.”

The Kingston students’ ‘Fashion Freaks’ were on show throughout London Fashion Week, which ran from 17 to 21 February.