Circular-design lab Atelier Luma designed Le Magasin Électrique, its new primary workspace in Arles, France, in collaboration with studios Assemble and BC Architects & Studies. The design is defined by an unusual palette of materials made from locally sourced bio-waste, various by-products and other under-valued materials. Image courtesy of Assemble.
James Binning is a founding member of Assemble, in London, England. He is currently visiting professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland and is a member of Glenkerry Co-operative Housing Association in East London, where he has been a member of the organization’s management committee for the past four years.
Binning will present a lecture at 4:30 p.m. Monday, March 25, in Ken and Linda Sue Shollmier Hall, Room 250 of Vol Walker Hall, on the University of Arkansas campus, as part of the spring lecture series in the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design.
In his lecture, “Earthly Delights,” Binning will introduce Assemble’s early projects, recent and current work, as well as the ideas and methods that underpin their approach to architectural practice. He will present their work as a relational activity that is as interested in the culture and use of the built environment and the form that this environment takes.
At Assemble, Binning’s involvement in early projects was focused on fabrication and construction, including welding work on exhibitions and installations and large-scale, self-built projects. He has taught in architecture schools in the United Kingdom and abroad since 2014, leading a postgraduate design research unit at London Metropolitan University for five years.
His teaching work has a special focus on working with local authorities and community organizations, with projects focused on developing alternative approaches to addressing a lack of affordable housing provision in outer London areas, enabling self-build at scale, promoting large-scale, community-led development and building more equitably and ecologically in rural situations. This work has led to working at a more strategic scale in practice.
Binning is currently working on projects in the United Kingdom to develop new types of self-built, community-led housing in France, where he is working with a local community organization to build a new theater, and in Australia, where he is working on a large project to build new spaces for industry alongside other kinds of cultural, civic and commercial uses.
In 2015, Assemble was the first architecture practice to win the Turner Prize, Europe’s most prestigious prize for art.
This is the June Biber Freeman Lecture in Architecture. Binning will also present a second lecture on Tuesday, March 26, at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts in Little Rock as part of the Architecture and Design Network’s June Freeman Lecture Series, which is co-sponsored by the Fay Jones School.
The school is pursuing continuing education credits for this lecture through the American Institute of Architects.
This lecture is free and open to the public. Seating is limited.
