Dear EASA people,

if you haven't done so already, please read our newsletters!!!

March Newsletter >

                  <p class="style20"><span class="style23">April Newsletter</span> <a href="http://easa008.ie/newsletter/easa_newsletter_ncs_april.html">&gt;</a></p>
                  <p class="style20"><span class="style23">May Newsletter</span> <a href="http://easa008.ie/newsletter/easa_newsletter_ncs_may.html">&gt;</a></p>
                 
                  <p class="style20"><span class="style23">June Newsletter</span> <a href="http://easa008.ie/newsletter/easa_newsletter_ncs_june.html" target="_blank">&gt;</a></p>
                  <p class="style20"><span class="style23">July Newsletter</span> <a href="http://easa008.ie/newsletter/easa_newsletter_ncs_july.html" target="_blank">&gt;

Hope everyone is keeping well. Can everyone attending EASA 2008 please answer this poll as we need to get some bookings in place for the Sunday excursions.

Dear NC’s, we have noticed a small error in the application form that excludes participant’s email addresses from the form. We kindly request that you please send us (team{at}easa008{dot}ie) an email with an excel or google spreadsheets document containing the following information;

Participant’s Name/////////Email Address/////////Arrival date

We would hugely appreciate this information as soon as possible.

Also, we have a couple extra places going on a first come first serve basis. Whomever wants them, come and get them soon!

Cheers ;)

The organisers of EASA Ireland are proud to announce the presence of Brian Anson at the Assembly between the 9th and 24th of August. Brian Anson has been an advocator of community inclusion in the process of design and architecture for over fifty years and he promises to play a fundamental role in EASA 2008.

Born into into a working class background in Liverpool, England in 1935, he worked as an urbanist and planner in his native city and the city of Dublin in 1960s. In 1969 and 1970 he worked tirelessly for the preservation of Covent Garden, a small inner city borough of London.The buildings and the community dwelling there were under threat of total annihilation by a group of developers and local planning authorities,instilling a policy which had ripped the heart out of England's post Industrial cities through out the decade. After rounding the local community and after group consultations, a proposition and compromise was reached which was deemed acceptable by the local authorities. Covent Garden was saved and has since been seen as a successful regeneration project, where old buildings and existing communities can be adapted and evolve without their total demise. Its model has served as a precedent for other projects, most notably the Temple Bar regeneration project in Dublin. A book was published in 1981 entitled "I'll Fight You For It", outlining the Covent Garden struggle.

As a result of the Covent Garden success, Brian was accepted by the Architectural Association where he acted as Unit Master from 1972. It was here that Brian was involved with discussions and debates with architects such as Peter Cook, expressing and reiterating the importance of community involvement. Growing slowly disillusioned with the path his colleagues were taking, he strove to create an alternative future to the profession through the founding of the Architects Revolutionary Council (ARC). Brian Anson realised that the problems plaguing the profession, i.e. the pandering to developers and lack of ground roots community communication were a result of a deeply flawed education system. His reaction to this was the foundation of the Schools of Architecture Council (SAC) in 1979.

The role of the SAC was a body whose purpose was to show an alternative to the formal education, then on offer in the schools of architecture. Brian Anson was elected president of the organisation by the students as a protest against the established schools. In summer 1979, over 800 students attended a gathering in a tower block in Sheffield. Students from all over England exchanged ideas and created their own educational systems and architectural proposals, independent of a main organisation. The gathering was repeated in Hull the next year but unfortunately, the SAC was dissolved in 1981. The momentum did not dissipate however and its framework was recycled in the form of the Winter Schools, one of which was held in Anson's native Liverpool. The Winter School was such a success that the students, among them Richard Murphy decided to invite students from around Europe and England to investigate the urban blight of decay then ravishing the city. This organised gathering, void of any political agenda or motivation would be later regarded as the first European Architecture Student Assembly. It was the legacynof an idea which had germinated in the winter schools of the late 1970s.

Brian Anson continued his community work. He was invited by the community of Gaoth Dobhair, Donegal to propose suggestions for the retention of a culture and a language under siege by inept planning authorities. A dossier was published, outlining coherent plans for future development. It was a plan which had grown from the roots of the community and despite having a lack of the Irish-Gaelic language, Anson portrayed a deep and profound understanding for the people and their history, with a future full of hope. He envisioned a community that would become self dependent over time, utilising and mobilising it's innate skills and practices. It was rejected however, as being far too radical. Unfazed, Anson took part in the Mobile Unit Scheme between 1983 and 1986. He travelled as part of a team in a converted camper van through Britain and Ireland, uniting community groups and causing a media flurry where ever he went. His journeys brought him form the post-industrial collier towns of Thatcherite England to the war scarred streets of Belfast. It was here that the story of the Divis Street flats came to the fore. Anson unveiled a woefully inadequate housing scheme, where a British Army base was built practically atop the residents dwellings. The case was brought to London and received full media attention at the time. A campaign was instigated which led to eventual demolition of the complex.

Brian Anson has been living in France since 1991 where he has been painting, reading and writing his views on architecture and its possible future. He has run a series of annual modules in the University of Birmingham where students from around the world exchange views and learn from Brian's vast experience of working within a local and community framework. It is the privelege and honour of EASA Ireland to have him as a tutor and speaker at the Assembly this August and without a doubt, he will play an integral part in the proceedings.

Hello Easa people, who live in Vienna. I'm going to Italy at the architectural congress. And It happens so, that I must be in Vienna for 2 days (26 and 27 June) cause I' ll be waiting for my tourists group from Moscow. Totally all cheap hostels are full!!!! Because of the european match!!! I'm also looking for some possibilities to stay 2 nights at hospitabilityclub.org Maybe there are some variants to get accomodation for only 2 nights?

Cause I'll never be alone, yeah..? Daria ^_^

My ICQ number 423192375

hello people.

i would like to get under you're attention that our office is looking for international orientated trainees from September on.

we are currently working on several projects like a large theater in Ljubljana (Slovenia), a museum in Cincinnati(US), a casino in Utrecht(NL), a fashion designers flagshipstore in Moscow and other projects.

if y feel like a break from you’re studies and get some good professional experience, check our website www.neutelings-riedijk.com

cheers, NRA

Hi Hrvatska,

I'll be in Zagreb on Saturday night for one night only if anyone wants to meet for a pivo, you know my email address!

Ronan

it's been rather silent since the awesome website was released, on which Hana and Dijana were working on. I still think its's a important matter, for reasons mentioned in a earlier post. Obviously there's still a lot of work to do and a lot of things to discuss in order to get a decent appearence on the web. There won't be a workshop this summer and i'd like therefore to give a short overview about the current situation and maybe suggest further moves.

I'd say it was a quite anticipating idea to digitalize the physical archive during the last two years, since, well, it's gone. correct me if i'm wrong ( and I truly hope i am), but there were only two physical easa-archives: One in Copenhagen, which has been thrown away. And now guess in which faculty building the second was... exactly! does any dutch know anything about it whether it was somewhere else or if it somehow escaped the flames for some reason? And does anyone know if there's another archive somewhere?

If not, then there's not much left except for two harddrives (one with pernille in cph and one here in Zürich), which are not at all complete (entire years are missing), but at least they have a decent amount of information, pictures and films.

There's also some stuff spread all over the world in the shelters of some estimated 10000 easians...

other things that were developed but hardly discussed/agreed on during last easa/INCM/blog are the use or uselessness of a eas-calendar, blog vs. forum (i changed my minde a little bit) and the Logo once again.

Not too many easians join the discussions here on the blog, wherefore i suggest we'll also talk about it during a nc-meeting in Ireland. If they're in any way similar to the ones in elefsina ("are there any problems with anything?... not?... some cookies anyone?" ;) ) it should be possible...

cheers!