RIAS International Convention

RIAS International Convention Aberdeen 10-12 May 2012

Re-engaging with the Past

We have a fantastic group of speakers lined up for the RIAS 2012 Convention, our major annual event, this year to be held in Aberdeen’s Belmont Cinema.

The first half day of the Convention, the Thursday afternoon, will embrace a sports theme with Gerry Grams of Glasgow City Council talking about the Commonwealth Games masterplans and infrastructure and Kerr Robertson, also of Glasgow City Council, reporting on the sports facilities for Glasgow 2014.

James Grimley of Reiach & Hall Architects will review their RIBA Award winning Aberdeen Regional Sports Centre.

David Mackay Hon FRIAS, of Barcelona based MBM Arquitectes, will look back on the Barcelona Olympics while Kevin Owens of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Ltd, will look ahead to the 2012 Olympics. Mike Taylor of Hopkins Architects will talk about the Olympic Velodrome.

The Friday plenary session will feature both exceptional Scottish and International speakers:
Evgeny Gerasimov, Evgeny Gerasimov & Partners, St Petersburg and Berlin
Neil Gillespie OBE FRIAS, Reiach & Hall Architects, Edinburgh
Robin Hardy, screenwriter and director
Gareth Hoskins FRIAS, Gareth Hoskins Architects, Glasgow
Kengo Kuma, Kengo Kuma & Associates, Tokyo
John McAslan CBE RIAS, John McAslan & Partners, London
Philip Long, V&A Dundee
David Page FRIAS, PagePark Architects, Glasgow
Eric Parry, Eric Parry Architects, London
Charles Renfro, Diller Scofidio and Renfro, New York
Murray Restrup FRIAS, President ASA, Aberdeen
Morten Schmidt, Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects, Aarhus
Sergei Tchoban, SPEECH Tchoban/Kuznetsov, Moscow

Aberdeen’s Belmont Cinema is an eminently suitable venue for Convention 2012. The recently restored and re-opened historic picture-house will play host to our traditional Thursday afternoon and Friday plenary sessions, while Richard Murphy’s Park Inn, a more recent addition to the Aberdeen scene, will serve as both the Convention hotel and the venue for the speaker’s dinner on the Friday evening.

Full details are available in the Convention Programme.

View or download the Thursday line-up.

View or download the Friday line-up.

Convention prices - Thursday
RIAS Members £60.00 + 12.00 VAT (£72.00)
Non-RIAS £99.00 + 19.80 VAT (£118.80)
RIAS Concessionary £30.00 + £6.00 VAT (£36.00)

Convention prices - Friday
RIAS Members £99.00 + 19.80 VAT (£118.80)
Non-RIAS £150.00 + £30.00 VAT (£180.00)
RIAS Concessionary £40.00 + £8.00 VAT (£48.00)

*Concessionary rates applies to RIAS student/retired and hardship membership classes

Convention prices – Hotel
Thursday night:
Single Occupancy £89 + VAT
Double Occupancy £99 + VAT

Friday night:
Single Occupancy £55 + VAT
Double Occupancy £65 + VAT

How to book
Booking forms will be distributed with the March Quarterly or you can download from here Booking Form
Please note that we are unable to take bookings after Tuesday 8th May.

To book your hotel room, please call Patricia on 01224 570 000 (weekdays) or the hotel reception on 01224 592 999 (weekends) and quote “RIAS” to get the special rate.

The 2012 RIAS Convention is generously sponsored by Denfind Stone, Gartcarron Fire Engineering and Surecav

RIAS Convention Fringe
The RIAS is delighted that two exhibitions are being organised to coincide with the Convention. Covell Matthews Architects and the Scott Sutherland School are both having shows in city centre venues.

1. spAce Architecture Exhibition
Scott Sutherland School of Architecture and the Built Environment Student Exhibition
Venue: No. 7 Belmont Street, Aberdeen
Date: 11-16 May
Time: Daily from 12.00pm – 5.00pm

spAce
“thinking spAce linking spAce filler spAce fragment”

SpAce starts with the generic, the ordinary and the everyday; but it also carries the virtual, immaterial and the impalpable.

The following exhibition comprises fragments of a student`s journey into the ambivalent territory of spAce. These are not intended as convincing statements of fact. Rather, the internal workings of design process, revealing tenuous inter-connections between multiplied and diversified bits of spAce. The work is divided between a temporary exhibition in the “city centre” and within the Scott Sutherland School of Architecture on the “edge”of Aberdeen.

This exhibition attempts to explore the notion of spAce as a process where concepts, ideas and intentions take precedence over final projects. Within this embryonic landscape, the ideal is only visible in dim light. It can be a frightening plAce where nothing is fixed or certain. The conviction needed to stake a route through this territory can only be refined through experience.

Isolating drawings and models from their educational context makes their vision vulnerable. This collage traces from a fragment to unexpected wider contexts.

2. Toby Paterson: Paintings, Prints & Reliefs
Venue: The Smart Gallery, 9 Albyn Terrace, AB10 1YP
Exhibition dates: 11 May – 24 June
Private view: Thursday 10th May; 6.00pm – 9.00pm; immediately following the RIAS Convention Programme and open to all delegates

The forms and ideas inherent in architecture and the built environment inspire Toby Paterson’s work. He is particularly interested in the post-war reinvention of cities under the influence of modernism and is intrigued by what the cultural outcome of that influence has been.

Toby lives and works in Glasgow, a city at the heart of the British experience of this phenomenon, his continuing engagement with such a perpetually changing context has informed a broader view about the spaces we inhabit. In a gallery situation, his installations of painting and sculpture allude to existing sites, aestheticised approaches to the construction of architectural space and the social and political motivations responsible for creating the built environment.

Whether relating directly to a specific location or representing a hybrid of real and imagined space, the work positions itself between architectural conception and built reality. By referencing those points where buildings and ideas meet, it is his hope that these images conspire to create a space imbued with a clarity that is rarely possible in the actual built environment. This in turn hopefully hints at the possibility of a creative engagement with, and the reinterpretation of, the spaces that surround us.

Toby Paterson has been appointed lead artist on the extension to the Docklands Light Railway for the London Olympics in 2012.

Artwork courtesy of the Artist, The Modern Institute/Toby Webster Ltd Glasgow and Peacock Visual Arts.