SLIC Meeting - Kingston University

This was my first meeting as a member of SLIC - Student Landscape Insitute Council. SLIC is the student voice for the landscape profession, promoting student interests and articulating student views within the Landscape Institute. I was really keen to get involved and act as the voice for Kingston University students and become involved in the forthcoming events planned by SLIC.

* We discussed ways of making SLIC better known among both students and professionals, and ensuring there is a representative from each university.

* We decided upon a new SLIC logo which will be printed onto promotional postcards and be shown on the SLIC stand at events.

* The cityscape exhibiton have offered SLIC a central floor space of 333sqm to design a streetscene using materials, street furniture etc provided by the other exibitors, and create a place for people to relax during the event. Laura Bradley and Kate Newton designed the layout and asked the SLIC representatives for their thoughts and ideas.

The SLIC website is www.slic.info

Open House London

Open House is a charity committed to raising the standard of good design, particularly in the capital. Their annual festival of architecture involves opening up six hundred buildings across London, new and old, for the public to view completely for free!

I started the day at The Monument, designed by Sir Christopher Wren and built to commemorate the Great Fire of London 1666. After climbing the 311 steps I was rewarded with panoramic views of the city.

The Lloyds Building, is somewhere I've always been fascinated in. The building was designed by Richard Rogers and is described as 'a mechanical cathedral'. The essential services are sited on the exterior of the building in six vertical towers leaving large uniterrupted spaces within. Inside the glass and steel hide real surprises. The Adam Room, out of character from the ultra high-tech interior, is a classical Italianate wood-pannelled room. It was originally the dining room of Bowood House and was bought to Lloyd's piece by piece.

London City Hall, along South Bank, was designed by Norman Foster in 2002. It's one of the capitals most symbolically important new projects and is a sustainable, virtually non polluting building. This beautiful modern spiralling staircase runs through the centre overlooking views of the Thames.

Wimbledon College of Art Degree Show

This was a really good opportunity to see the work of students from another art university. On show was postgraduate Fine Art work which included a mixture of drawing, painting, print and digital media and sculpture, aswell as performance. They had come up with some really innovative ways of exhibiting their work which made me start to think about our final degree show next Summer.....