On Wednesday 26 February 2020, guest speaker Professor Paul W Chan - Editor-in-Chief of “Construction Management and Economics”, delivered a Research Hub session on behalf of the School of BEA, about ‘What constitutes theoretical contribution in publishing in the CME field?’

Paul W Chan holds the Chair of Design and Construction Management and is Director of the Graduate School at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment in Delft University of Technology. His research focuses on human relations in project-based contexts, and he has managed a number of funded projects that examine how people cope with social, organisational and technological change. He has authored over 90 peer-reviewed journal and conference papers, including a co-authored book on Constructing Futures: Industry leaders and futures thinking in construction (Wiley-Blackwell). He is Editor-in-Chief of Construction Management and Economics, and Immediate Past Chair of ARCOM.

In this insightful session, Pau

LSBU's School of the Built Environment & Architecture cares deeply about the experience of our international students. Each semester we take our international students out on a visit, in December 2019 we took a guided tour of the Tate Modern and then took a boat ride to the Greenwich Christmas Markets. Check out some of the photos below.

We're meeting in a couple of weeks to decide where we'll visit next - exciting!

On 19 February 2020 Professor Geoff Leventhall presented at the Keyworth Lecture theatre. He delivered a fascinating talk entitled “I can still hear it and it’s making me ill”.

The presentation discussed and contested challenging aspects of noise perception and associated annoyance of very quiet noises and even non-existent noises. It considered that multiple external influences and factors could promote adverse responses to noise. Controversial health effects and disturbance from wind turbine low frequency noise were also covered.

Professor Leventhall was Head of Institute of Environmental Engineering and reader in Acoustics at London South Bank University. He was also president of the Institute of Acoustics (IOA). He is a world-leading expert in low frequency noise and infrasounds and is currently a consultant in Noise and Vibration.

The audience valued and appreciated the insights put forward by Professor Leventhall, judging by the numerous comments and questions posed to him.

We are happy to announce that we will be hosting an event on Thursday 5th March 2020 (5:30pm to 8:00pm) about “Retrofitting the Built Environment in UK”. The aim of the event is to discuss the emission of CO2 in London, due to construction industries and propose case studies for sustainable constructions such as sustainable construction materials.

This will be a joint event with CIWEM metropolitan branch.

Feel free to see the flyer for further details.

Please also ensure that you pre-register by emailing Dr Rabee Shamass, Senior Lecturer at LSBU, to confirm your attendance at shamassr@lsbu.ac.uk

On Tuesday 21 January 2020, the winner of the Fan Makers Award, for the 2019-20 academic year was announced. The winner is Musab Mahmood, a first year apprenticeship student on the BEng Building Services Engineering course.

Musab was awarded a prize Bursary of £1,500. The School of BEA would like to congratulate Musab on his Award.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Based on an invitation by Dr Amer Ali, who is the coordinator of professional development and liaison officer for the IHE, ICE and CIHT, the President of the Institute of Highway Engineers (IHE), Mr. Richard Hayes visited LSBU on Tuesday 19 November 2019 and gave a talk about the IHE and professional development to our final year BEng civil engineering students.

This was followed by a similar talk to our final year BSc civil engineering students, by the former President of the IHE, Mr. Steve Spender.

Every January, some of the best Institute of Acoustics (IOA) Diploma student final projects undertaken at the School of BEA, are presented by authors at the IOA London Branch meeting.

To add to that, a new IOA Diploma Student Final Project award competition was set up last year by course director Dr Luis Gomez-Agustina in collaboration with the IOA and the sponsor of the award, acoustics instrumentation manufacturer NTI-Audio.

At this year’s London Branch meeting held on 16 January 2020, two nominated finalists, of the first year of the competition, presented their work undertaken at LSBU in the last academic year (2018-19).

Paul Roberts presented his work on Sound Propagation From Lightwells and Jakub Hajko presented on Monitoring Aircraft Reduced Engine Taxi Using Sound Level Meters.

Charles Greene, General manager of NTI-Audio UK, presented the award and prize to the winner, Jakub Hajko.  

After the meeting and award ceremony we all went to the local pub to raise our glass

Congratulations to Luis Gomez, who was awarded SFHEA and to Steve Philips, who was awarded AFHEA.

The Delegation from the Internal Resources Division (IRD), Ministry of Finance, Bangladesh visited the School of the Built Environment and Architecture.

10 senior Bangladesh Government technical and vocation education officials visited the School of the Built Environment and Architecture. The delegation was met by Mr Daniel Janowski Business Development Manager, Prof John Ebohon Director of Internationalisation and Dr Issa Chaer- Director of Research and Enterprise for the School.

During the visit, Prof John Ebohon conducted a session on the role of Vocational Education in Economic Development and the process of institutionalising and embedding it in the system. The delegation was taken through the UK experience in supporting vocational education.

Dr Issa Chaer then spoke to the delegation about his experience of developing courses at London South Bank University and the importance of industry engagement, quality assurance, articulation and path route for development.

On Wednesday 11 December 2019, we visited Tarmac concrete mix factory. It was very interesting to see how the concrete is mixed first hand.

Our students were very engaged with experts from Tarmac, where logistics, materials and the sustainability aspect of their operation were discussed.

On Wednesday 20 November 2019, we visited the steel fabrication factory based in Hounslow, to gain an understanding of how they operate and to learn more about the challenges they face from a business point of view in the steel industry.

We saw a demonstration of a robotic arm used for welding end plates to a column, which sparked some interesting discussion within our industry.

On Wednesday 13 November 2019, we had the pleasure of taking our Civil Engineering students to visit a construction site on 90 Blackfriars Road, SE1.

It was a very valuable experience to understand site constraints, particularly working in central London. We will have to appreciate the logistics during and after construction as there are implications to consider in our design.

Thank you to United Living Group for accommodating this visit for the students.

Our LSBU Civil Engineering students visited Brunel Museum in Rotherhithe on Wednesday 16 October 2019.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel was one of the most renowned Civil Engineers in history, and the students had the opportunity to celebrate his engineering triumph and learn about the history.

We are delighted to announce that Piotr Smiechowicz - a July 2019 graduate of the LSBU architecture programme - has been awarded a RIBA Silver Medal Commendation in the RIBA President's Medals international design competition; Piotr is a student of MArch: Master of Architecture Studio 23 (co-led by Professor Lilly Kudic and Luke Murray), and his project receiving this award is called MoonCatcher.   

The President's Medals is the oldest competition for students of architecture in the world, with an impressive history spanning 185 years; it is considered to be both the most prestigious, and the most demanding competition in which to succeed, and we would like to send Piotr congratulations on behalf of all the architecture team, the School of the Built Environment and Architecture, and LSBU as a whole.  This is a great achievement, and builds on the very strong record LSBU architecture has established for success in the President's Medals.

Piotr received his Commendation from RIBA Pre

A delegation from the Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) came to LSBU on 18 Nov 2019 to meet and present CIBSE and its relevant industries to our HNC Building Services Students.

The visit organised by construction practice lecturer Dr Luis Gomez-Agustina, involved meeting and networking with students as well as the delivery of an inspirational and motivational talk on the career prospects and opportunities in the concerned industry.     

Valuable professional development advice was shared by a Fellow of CIBSE who is also Managing Principal of Elementa, a building services company with strong focus on the future of intelligent buildings. CIBSE membership routes and Engineering Council professional registration opportunities were also well expounded. The students showed clear interest in the themes being  presented, judging by the many questions posed and after talk discussions. Luis has planned to have the visit of CIBSE and Elementa again for next semesters f

Luis Gomez-Agustina (gomezagl@lsbu.ac.uk) has organised for William Minting (Director of MINTING) to deliver a talk on Tuesday 19 November 2019 at 6pm in Keyworth Lecture Theatre B. Details provided below.

ABSTRACT

Hiscox versus The Pinnacle was a construction nuisance case heard in the High Court in 2008 and 2009. Pinnacle site clearance begin in mid-2008, with the demolition of the nine storey Crossley Court. This work caused high levels of noise and vibration in the neighbouring property belonging to Hiscox Insurance. This talk explores the ramifications of the most significant Construction Nuisance case since Andreae v Selfridge [CA 1938], and how safeguarding advancements apply to Party Wall etc Act 1996 matters, as well as construction projects conducted outside that jurisdiction. The talk is aimed to assist in particularising standard draft documents to specific project circumstances.

THE PRESENTER

Will enjoys a reputation for having advised the Royal Household, the Fre

Every year, the Architecture team led by Head of Division for Architecture, Lilly Kudic organise public lectures called ‘The Open Lecture series’. They are a series of public lectures for students of architecture, architecture graduates, and practising architects; the great news being that they are all open access with free admission!

Each lecture involves a celebrated architect and academic exploring the many and varied possibilities for professional practice, and the very different characteristics a career in architecture can offer. The first open lecture of 2019 took place in October and was led by guest speaker, Hugh Broughton, the founder of Hugh Broughton Architects who provided a fascinating insight into his career and plans for the future. The event was a great success with 130 people in attendance!

The next open lecture will take place on Thursday 7th November from 18:30 – 20:00 and will be led by Professor Murray Fraser of The Bartlett School of Architecture. If you are inte

The Architecture team recently received approval from the Architects Registration Board along with The Royal Institute of British Architects to deliver a new level 7 Architect apprenticeship course.  This course will combine the award of MArch: Master of Architecture (RIBA part 2) with the Postgraduate Diploma in Professional Practice (RIBA part 3) and will be the shortest postgraduate architecture apprenticeship course operating in the United Kingdom (43 months).  

Apprentices who successfully complete all elements of the course can graduate from LSBU with immediate access to the UK register of architects. This is an innovative and entirely new route into the profession, combining workplace-based and university-based learning.  LSBU remains the only university in the UK to offer both an undergraduate and postgraduate architecture apprenticeship.

A special thanks to Kira Ariskina; Course Director for Architecture Apprenticeships along with the entire LSBU Apprenticeship team for a

Dr Alex Paurine, one of the Acting Heads of Division for Civil and Building Services Engineering was recently informed by the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) that his team had won the Happold Brilliant Award for 2018/19. The Award recognises excellence in the teaching of building services engineering.

The panel were impressed by the high quality of graduates produced by the university and felt that the project topics studied by the students cover a wide range of building services areas and include sustainability and renewable systems. They commented that LSBU has excellent links with the industry through the advisory panel as well as LSBU staff being involved in knowledge transfer partnership schemes. They also acknowledged that students are supported by experienced, helpful and dedicated staff throughout their course.

The award comes in the form of an engraved crystal chalice and will be presented at the CIBSE President’s Award Dinner on Friday 11 October

An Acoustics masterclass will be given by Rob Harris, from ISVR, Universisty of Southamnpton and Theatre Projects, at 6pm on Thursday 19 September 2019 at the Keyworth Centre (Keyworth Lecture Threatre B). If you're interested in attending, please email the organiser, Dr Luis Gomez-Agustina at gomezagl@lsbu.ac.uk.

ABSTRACT
Auditorium acoustics is interesting in that objective science and engineering are employed to elicit subjective perceptions and emotions. This lecture discusses the auditorium acoustic design of concert halls, opera houses and theatres. It starts with describing some fundamental requirements for audiences, performers and other stakeholders. Both scientific and other factors are considered. The lecture will then look at how the art and science have developed over the last 35 years. This will include the use of scale and computer modelling, the paradigm shift of auralisation and the integration of architecture and creative digital audio. The scientific and engineering r