Welcome to the 24/25 Academic year at B.15

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Hello to all new and returning students!

Hopefully you all had a good summer break and are ready to hit the ground running at MSA. As usual we have spent the summer servicing and improving resources across the various spaces here at B.15.

The latest tote bag in the incredibly desirable range of B.15 tote bags has landed. Free to new starters

Updated Induction Procedures

All new students will now be required to complete an online induction video followed by a short questionnaire before booking their in-person tour of the space. These two stages are mandatory before students can make use of the space.

Once completed your induction is valid for the duration of your course.

The induction video, quiz and signup link can be found on your Moodle course home page and via the Making page. It looks something like this:

You can find the updated general users guide here. 

Induction Scheduled Closures

For the following days B.15 will be closed for group induction sessions which may result in reduced access during these times:

Tuesday 24th September, Wednesday 25th September (AM), Friday 27th September (AM)

Monday 30th September (AM), Wednesday 2nd October, Friday 4th October (AM)

Monday 7th October (AM), Tuesday 8th October (AM), Wednesday 9th October, Thursday 10th October (AM), Friday 11th October

Wednesday 16th October

New Kit

Towards the end of the last academic year we took delivery of a new SLS powder printer called the Fuse+. This machine replaces our older Projet360 Powder printer and produces a much higher resolution and durability for 3D printed components. Lara has done a much more detailed write-up about this which we’ll be sharing later this week.

Nearby we have also replaced our Vac former with a new pressure former, the Mayku Multiplier. This will enable much more control during forming and has and increased range of material options.

We have replaced one of the bandsaws in the main B.15 space which includes an uprated ceramic guides for an improved accuracy and a new cross slide angle guide.

New Reference Guides

Sustainable Modelmaking Guide – We have worked with Angela Connelly to compile a new sustainable modelmaking guide to different materials and their environmental impact.

B.15 CNC guide – Teagan has put together this guide for CNC preparation for those wanting to utilise it in any upcoming projects.

We’ll be announcing some more updates and upcoming guest events for the coming year soon.

See you soon! B.15 Team

MAKING in PRACTICE – Guest lecture series

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Following on from the themes presented and discussed at MAKING SCALE last year we’re pleased to announce a series of guest lectures on the subject of Modelmaking in practice.

‘MAKING in PRACTICE’ will feature four guest speakers from four varied UK Architecture practices.

Each lecture will begin at 17.30 and take place in the Humanities Bridgeford Street Building where we are based. The lectures are free to attend and open to anyone interested in joining, students, practitioners or public.

Monday 18th November 2024, Room G33                                                                      Ecaterina Stefenescu – Founding Partner of Estudio ESSE and Lecturer at UCLAN

Monday 27th January 2025, Room G33                                                                      Stephen Setford & Maz Weineck – Associate/Modelmakers at Stanton Williams

Monday 10th February 2025, Hanson Room                                                                  Roger Stephenson OBE – Founding partner of Stephenson Hamilton Risley Studio

Monday 24th February 2025, Room G33                                                                          Cassidy Wingrove – Associate/Modelmaker at Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios

We hope to see you there!

New 3D printer: Fuse+30W SLS powder printer

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We’re pleased to announce that after a successful bidding process last academic year we now have an exciting new type 3D Printer that uses selective laser sintering or SLS printing technology: The Fuse+ 30W.  

This type of 3D printing is a leading additive manufacturing technology that uses a high-powered laser to fuse small particles of powdered material together. The resulting fused powder forms your 3d print whilst the surrounding unfused powder is recycled back into the system. This circulation process is managed by the Fuse Sift station where excess powder is mixed with new before being added back into the printer as part of its own ecosystem. 

Our machine will exclusively use a grey powdered material called ‘Nylon 12’ which is known for its strength and durability, making it suitable for various applications in your model making projects.

The printable build area is 155mm(L) x 155mm(W) x 300mm(H).  

The process of creating SLS 3D parts first involves creating a suitable STL digital file that you will need to discuss with a member of B.15 staff. If accepted, your job will be priced up and added to the queue. Once your print has completed, the process requires a cool down period of around 6 hours before we can manually post-process it by removing all of the unfused powder.

Post-Processing – Cleaning excess powder from prints.

Depending on your design, you may have to contribute to this process. If this is the case or you would like to learn how it’s done, then we will provide instruction on how to do it.  

With this type of technology, it is more efficient and sustainable to group files together and because of this we will be trialling a workflow by running the machine once a week. This will initially be on a Thursday to run overnight and be ready to postprocess from Friday. If demand increases this will be extended to also include another day earlier in the week. Files need to be approved for this process no later than 1pm on Thursdays to have a chance of going on later that day. Post processing can be completed from Friday. 

Should you wish to find out more about this printer or about how it might be used as part of your project, drop in and speak to a member of B15 staff and we’ll happily discuss your project requirements.  

See you soon – Lara

B.15 Modelmaking Awards 2024 Longlist & Winners

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Congratulations to the winners of this years B.15 Modelmaking Awards! To mark ten years of the awards, ten projects were selected from the extensive range of submissions. This made the process of selection difficult and time consuming with the judges deliberating for almost two hours following inspection of all projects in the shortlist.

Whilst there can only be a limited number of prize winners we consider all participants winners and want to thank everyone who took the time to submit their work for consideration. This scheme has always been about much more than the winning projects but about the celebration of all modelmaking in design work.

The body of work submitted over the years will continue to provide inspiration to future students. Bound copies of these submissions that were included in our MAKE MORE MODELS retrospective display at this year degree show can now be found in the B.15 library. Digital copies can be viewed here.

On behalf of Pete Lee & Nina Criswell from HENN, Maz Weineck & Stephen Setford from Stanton Williams and all of us at B.15 we encourage you all to keep being creative and making in your future work in practice and further education.

For those leaving us please keep in touch and those still studying, see you soon!

Thank you to Stanton Williams and HENN for their continued support and enthusiasm!

The final 10 were:

Jamie Schneider (BA3)
Gordon Wu (BA3)
Ava Tizard (BA3)
Wei Feng (MArch 1)
Francis Richardson and Karolina Olszewska (MArch 2)
Louis Eden Walsh (BA3)
Rowdah Charbak (MArch 2)
Keng Chi Mak (MArch 1)
Theo Fisher (MArch 2)
Eleanor Jones (MArch 2)

B.15 Modelmaking Awards 2024 – Shortlist

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Hi All,

After much deliberation the Shortlist for the this years modelmaking awards has been decided by our sponsors HENN and Stanton Williams. We are awarding ten prizes this year to mark our tenth year with judging to take place in person on the afternoon of June 14th.

A total of 26 students have been selected from a longlist of over 70 submissions across all year groups and courses of MSA. In order of year of study/atelier the shortlisted students are as follows:

BA

Nicolas Ho – BA2

Jamie Schneider – BA3 SKN

Jiaqi Liu- BA3 SKN

Ava Tizard – BA3 SKN

Louis Eden Walsh – BA3 Infrastructure Space

Gordon Wu – BA3 Infrastructure space

Darshil Mistry – BA3 Infrastructure space

Dominic Edwards – BA3 CPU

Shahd Salama – BA3 CIA

Ella Cowie – BA3 CIA

MArch/MA

Sourabh Sahasrabudhe, Dakun Wang, Kyungho Oh – MA Architecture and Adaptive Re-use

Patricia Mock Gris, Rachel Elizabeth Thomas, Jing Yang, Wenjie Zeng – MA Architecture and Adaptive Re-use

Keng Chi Mak – MArch1 &Architecture

Brian Cox – MArch2 &Architecture

Lucy Kendall – MArch2 – &Architecture

Nur Alisa Binta Mohd Fadzil- MArch &Architecture

Rowdah Charbak – MArch2 &Architecture

Alina Iskrytska – MArch1 CIA

Ugne Boskaite & Jasmine Cornish – MArch2 CIA

Theo Fisher – MArch2 Flux

Leila Hooshmand – MArch2 Infrastructure Space

Maxwell Willis -MArch2 Infrastructure Space

Lauritz Kobor-MArch2 Infrastructure Space

Wei Feng – MArch1 SKN

Samantha Cutler – MArch 1 SKN

Francis Richardson & Karolina Olszewska – MArch2 SKN

Congratulations to everyone who has been selected and to everyone who submitted. the full longlist can be viewed here. 

If you have been selected please ensure your work is on display in the show and that you or a representative are present at 19.00 on Friday for the awards presentation.

Good luck to everyone and thanks for taking part!

– HENN representatives Oliver Koch and Nina Criswell judging the 2024 submissions for shortlisting

Celebrating ten years exhibition

Don’t forget to check out the MAKE MORE MODELS B.15 modelmaking awards exhibition in room 516 of Chatham until June 22nd.

 

Architecture and Adaptive Reuse Study Trip – Models in Madrid

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As part of the MA Architecture and Adaptive Reuse study trip to Madrid in March 2024 the group were taken on a guided tour of two model heavy exhibitions: ‘The Construction of a Country: Models of Spanish Architecture from the Transition to Present Day’ & ‘Nameless Models’.

The exhibitions were both on display at a former metro station which has been converted into a multipurpose display space occupied by the La Casa de la Arquitectura.

The main ‘Construction of the County’ display was housed over two levels and presented a chronological look at the varied architectural projects across Spain over the last 30 years. Each case study was presented through a physical model alongside an image of the completed site. The choice to display in this way more often than not focusses on finished presentation standard models. This was not the case with the curation choices here which resulted in an excellent display of model typologies including the abstract conceptual, technical studies, section studies, massing, collage & both colourised and monotone presentation examples. The range of styles and media used reflect the diverse range of projects covered and the complex aims of the messages being communicated as part of the design processes and architect-client conversation.

The group were given a guided tour by Alberto Yebenes and a guide from the venue who explained the cultural and professional relevance of the projects.

If you are in Madrid any time soon this exhibition was recently extended to run until June.

The second exhibition, ‘Nameless Models’ questions the role models play in the so called ‘Digital Age’. The display features a range of model types and themes without context and was initially presented at the Biennale of Young Architecture in Catalonia. The concept was to ask viewers to comment of what each model told them about a building design without them being given any information about the intention beforehand. The findings were then discussed to reveal how rich the embodied information of physical models continues to be as the medium helps to bridge the digital with reality and our understanding of practical possibilities and limitations.

Speaking with Alberto, he explained more about the purpose of the exhibition and how students might be influenced by its contents.

“Casa de la arquitectura is a cultural landmark. It has just reopened following retro fit (Adaptive reuse) so students (like me at the time) can enjoy again a flexible exhibition space specific for architectural models, plans installations etc. The aim of the model exhibition was to showcase 50 years of architecture from the Spanish transition to democracy from the Franco dictatorship era, going through economical wealth and decay. Highlighting the different architectural and urban implications: Sustainability, social sustainability, detail etc

The models displayed reflected many different sorts of scales, levels of detail and urban street escape and materiality. These combined represent graphic 3dimensional communication opportunities and variety which is absolutely key for the representation of architecture at any level. For Adaptive reuse specifically, the materiality chosen, detail, sectional detail and urban aspects showcased a remarkable catalogue of opportunities to express relationships between new and old, absolutely critical for our course.

Because of the time in the semester (investigation) our course was, the story about the different historical, societal, cultural and economic periods in Spain reflected in the use, typologies and scale of the models, opened a very useful conversation with yourself (Scott Miller) as a translator between these theories and the final student models in B15.

I particularly liked the middle of the exhibition, because it aggregated the boundary between economic optimism and recession/ decay, which you could dramatically understand through the typologies and the isolation of the models, which were less considerate with the urban context. It had a space for the renewed and silenced relevance of female architects as well.

Nameless models was a side exhibition, also incredibly interesting, as the lack of labelling inspired visitors to guess and interprate the models, materials, and details with no additional information about authors or building.”

More information about the exhibitions and La Casa de la Arquitectura can be found on their social media channel @casadelaarquitectura and on their website here:

https://lacasadelaarquitectura.es/recurso/la-construccion-de-un-pais-maquetas-de/05b5b794-afea-1ba4-fbad-e29c47ba582f?modal=on

https://lacasadelaarquitectura.es/recurso/nameless-models/071e209f-ecd1-b46a-9c78-4cee3abe9411

Thank to the hosts at La Casa de la Arquitectura and to Alberto for his organisation and allowing me to join the visit.

Announcing B.15 Modelmaking Awards 2024 – Celebrating 10 Years!

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2024 marks the tenth year of the B.15 Modelmaking Awards which we’re very happy to announce will be sponsored by two architectural practices with which we continue to share a common appreciation of the use of modelmaking in architectural education and practice. Stanton Williams who worked with us last year will be joined by HENN who have collaborated on past award sponsorships and through promoting modelmaking in practice with us.

The criteria for this years awards will remain unchanged and we at B.15 and our collaborators encourage anybody who has used modelmaking in their work to submit to the scheme. We would like to stress that projects are judged for their strengths as creative tools and creativity just as much as in their finish and materials choices. To put this another way, all physical models are valuable and can be considered for the awards schemes. If you have made models in your project work, take a look at the submission criteria and please submit your work to have it published and gain extra exposure to your fellow students and practicing architects and prospective employers.

A decade of recognising the use of modelmaking at

Manchester School of Architecture

Over the past ten years we have had hundreds of project submissions from all year groups and courses. It’s been our pleasure to provide a platform celebrating the culture of modelmaking at MSA and we hope to continue to do so.

The body of work over these years provides a fantastic source of inspiration that we can continue to learn from.

The past submission documents can be found here

Who can submit?

If you’re a student at MSA that has made physical models then you are eligible to submit. Any study programme, Any year group, Any projects.

What is the criteria?

We’ll explain this in more detail in a follow up post but put simply, If you’re an MSA student on any programme who has made any physical model(s) of any kind then you can and should submit. Keep a look out for the full criteria and submissions opening after the Easter break. In the meantime keep making – any models count as we’re looking at overall use of modelmaking not necessarily just one model!

When do you need to submit?

Submission instructions will be posted here and on moodle following the Easter break so look out for an update of how to submit your work during April. From the point of announcement you will have until the end of Monday June 10th to submit your projects.

How are the awards judged? 

The submissions will be sent as a combined document to the joint sponsors who will select a shortlist to be viewed in person at the end of year show. The chosen projects will be marked against the submission criteria by representatives of B.15, Stanton Williams and HENN.

When will we know the outcome?

The outcome of the judging process will be announced at the End of Year show awards presentation on the evening of Friday June 14th.

>>>>>>> SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW OPEN <<<<<<<

Please download the B.15 MM Awards 2024 Student Submission Guide and Templates

After preparing your submission as per the guidelines you can submit via this form link. 

In the meantime if you have any questions about the scheme please get in touch via scott.miller@manchester.ac.uk

On behalf of the B.15 Staff and our collaborators at HENN and Stanton Williams, good luck, get making and we look forward to seeing your modelmaking work!

 

Easter Opening and Extended Late Opening Hours 2024

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Hi All,

In the coming weeks B.15 will be closed on the following dates over the Easter Break:

Friday 29th March – Bank Holiday

Monday 1st April – Bank Holiday

Tuesday 2nd April – Friday 5th April – Closed

We will then reopen as normal from Monday 8th April.

Late Opening

B.15 will be open to MSA students for an additional 3 hours (16.30-19.30) on the following dates to assist in the finishing of final models:

Tuesday 15th April, Wednesday 16th April, Thursday 17th April

Tuesday 23rd April, Wednesday 24th April, Thursday 25th April

Tuesday 30th April, Wednesday 1st May, Thursday 2nd May

You must sign up to attend these additional hours. The building will be locked from 18.00 each day so you must be in by then.

IMPORTANT – YOU MUST SIGN UP TO ATTEND! 

Please sign up via the link on the Moodle MSA Student Announcements page if you wish to attend and remember to remove your name if you no longer wish to attend as soon as you make that decision so others can use the space.

See you soon!

B.15 Team

 

MAKING SCALE Project – Expression of interest

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Project Summary

Launched at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023, The Making Scale project addresses the decline in perceived value of physical modelmaking in architectural design by students and practitioners. It will survey and share the excellence and diversity of approaches of designing-through-making in professional practice as well as teaching and research at MSA.

The B.15 workshop promotes a culture that values skills in making in architectural design. Architecture is a material practice and therefore physical modelling is invaluable in architectural design processes at urban, building and tectonic scales.

The outcome of the Making Scale project will be a compendium of case studies that will be a source of inspiration for students and practitioners as well as an online resource for graduates to identify opportunities where they can continue to employ and develop their modelmaking skills in professional design contexts.

If you would like to receive further information on forthcoming events and/ or you would like to participate in our survey of architectural modelmaking in professional practice please enter you details here.

All information provided is confidential to MAKING SCALE project team and will not be shared with any other parties.

APMM Book Discussion – Modelling the Metropolis: The Architectural Model in Victorian London

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On Thursday 8th February at 18.00 Scott will be joining an online discussion hosted by the Association of Professional Modelmakers with Dr David Lund about Dr. Matthew Wells book, Modelling the Metropolis: The Architectural Model in Victorian London.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Register to join online here<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Hope to see you there!

Participant Bios

Matthew Wells, Lecturer in Architectural History at University of Manchester, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a member of the Manchester Architecture Research Group, and author of “Modelling the Metropolis. He studied art history at the Courtauld Institute of Art and completed his doctorate in the History of Design Programme at the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Royal College of Art. Dr Matthew Wells – Manchester School of Architecture (msa.ac.uk)

Scott Miller is the Workshop Technical Manager of the B.15 Modelmaking Workshop at Manchester School of Architecture. Before taking up this position he worked as a freelance modelmaker on architectural, commercial and display models and in exhibition design and construction. Scott obtained a degree in Modelmaking in 2011 from the Arts University Bournemouth. Scott Miller – Manchester School of Architecture (msa.ac.uk)

David Lund, Modelmaking Historian and Senior Lecturer BA (Hons) Modelmaking & BA (Hons) Design at AUB, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Higher Education Academy, and author of “A History of Architectural Modelmaking in Britain: The Unseen Masters of Scale and Vision” David has a doctorate in the History of Architectural Model Making and is in charge of the cataloguing and interpretation of the Thorp Modelmaking Archive, a unique collection of over 60,000 photographs and documents charting the history of the oldest architectural modelmaking company in the world. Dr David Lund – AUB Staff Profile