Laboratory: Climate Cartographics

Laboratory is a fortnightly free public lecture series, investigating forms of sustainable practice

Hosted at Jestico + Whiles’ Clerkenwell studio, Laboratory brings together a new generation of designers, artists, architects and researchers investigating the future of practice in an era of rapid environmental change.

From exploring emerging technologies, construction methods and bio-based materials, to thinking locally through meaningful community collaboration and utilising open source digital platforms, we will discuss how shifting our relationship with material and social resources can help build a more sustainable design and construction industry.

Climate Cartographics

Ben Pollock and John Cook

Architectural researchers and co-founders of UKRI funded research studio Climate Cartographics, Ben Pollock and John Cook, join us to reflect on the studio's inaugural year of work, focused on climate, data and cartographic visualisation.

Their talk will covering four pilot projects funded by a UKRI proof of commercialization grant while based at Westminster University in 2022/2023. Working across the academic, not-for-profit, private, and public sectors, we will showcase and discuss a series of recent drawings and animated works that explain the origins of the studio's thinking and emerging methodologies of climate communication.

This visual narration will take you through a range of projects and their climate data representations, derived from satellite observations, climate models, obscure data sets, and gathered fieldwork insights to support local visioning and experiences. Central to this discourse is the exploration and translation of data as a drawn and artistic medium, the innovative computational techniques used to interpret and vision this data within architectural constructs and cartographic languages, and the aesthetic and spatial principles that underpin this approach.

In some examples, data sources, gathering apparatus and their accuracies are scrutinized and incorporated into the work, while others reflect on the disparities and interactions between limited climatic data and the lived experience of weather. Hereby challenging the typical sterile and ineffective visual communication of the climate and ecological crisis, which often fails to capture the complexity, unknowns, scale and intersection of compounding issues.

Ben Pollock

Ben Pollock is an architect, researcher, and teacher based in London. He has previous architectural experience at Hopkins, Fletcher Priest, and Jestico + Whiles, where he predominantly worked on projects in the educational sector alongside large-scale commercial retrofits. In 2020, he co-founded 4D Island, a non-profit design research practice that focuses on using computational design to develop new spatial intelligences, material understandings, and regenerative climate adaptation strategies with front-line communities. Past and ongoing projects include the SSRC-funded Sounding the Monsoon and the Prince Claus Fund and Goethe-Institut’s project on cultural and artistic responses to environmental change, Weaving the Nakaiy.

In addition, he co-runs a Master’s architecture studio, DS18, at Westminster University, where he is also a Research Fellow and founding member of the UKRI funded research studio Climate Cartographics.

John Cook

John Cook is an architect, researcher, teacher and artist. He gained his bachelors in Architecture at the University of Nottingham, followed by his masters and professional diploma qualification from the University of Westminster. He worked for a number of years in practice at Birds Portchmouth Russum Architects, specialising in highly unique private residential and bespoke fabrication projects.

He returned as a tutor and researcher at the University of Westminster to work on the ERC Research Project ‘Monsoon Assemblages’. This lead to his recent work exploring the communication of a range of climate change issues and scales around the world. Drawing on fieldwork, data and computational tools, these outcomes are investigated and presented through cartographic visualisations, animations and physical installations, and have been published and exhibited internationally.

He is a founding member of Climate Cartographics, a grant funded research studio applying these developed environmental mapping processes and aesthetics across a range of academic, governmental, commercial and non-for-profit applications.

Information

⏲Timings: Please arrive from 18.30. Talks will begin at 19.00 with discussions wrapping up by 19.45, followed by drinks!

📍Location: Jestico + Whiles, Sutton Yard, 65 Goswell Road, London, EC1V 7EN

💬Tickets: Places are free but limited

Accessibility

Our studio is based on the second floor of Sutton Yard, close to Farringdon (step-free access) station. The building has step-free access and disabled toilets. There will be quiet breakout space provided for anyone who needs to step away from the crowd and discussion.

If you have accessibility requirements, please email [email protected]