At the helm of the BK space station

udelft.nl/article/it-s-a-great-privilege/30186″>appointment as dean and professor at the faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment (BK) in May 2015, he shared his key ideas for the future of the faculty in his 3A model with an audience of around 200.

Russell believes architects have a role to make coming changes in this digital society happen for the better. Digitalisation and robotisation can transform our homes, the way we shop and our personal and mass transport, bringing increased efficiency and freeing up space. Architects have the chance to design new urban spaces bringing quality to our cities.

BK is a world leading architecture faculty that others look to for guidance finds Russell. So it cannot afford to miss engaging with the future of Africa. Its increasing population, improving governance and rising wealth will bring investment in development of housing and cities. BK can be at the heart of a lasting network to train the future city managers of the continent. It can use existing expertise of the Centre for Frugal Innovation in Africa (CFIA) and Amsterdam Metropolitan Solutions (AMS) programmes.

Russell would like to bring agility in teaching to architecture after 200 years following the traditional Beaux-Arts model that teaches design, technology, urban planning, drawing and history. This model has created a global, well connected discipline and profession but he challenged the ongoing myth that just because designers can envision future spaces they are in charge of reality. “Do we really know what we’re doing?” he said. “And are we aware of our responsibilities?”
Russell would like to see more experimentation in architectural education and a metric to appraise the results, especially of new digital and online methods.

Growing up in Canada, Peter Russell wanted to become an astronaut. He became an architect after studying graphics and engineering, with a side-line fighting fires from helicopters. “It has been heart-warming to be embraced by the BK community as an outsider,” he said showing a plan of BK. “At the same time they told me the faculty is like a slow moving ship and hard to change course. But when I look at the plan it reminds me of the International Space Station, and after all we do deal with ‘space’ there.” So he considers his childhood dream fulfilled and encouraged all at BK to contribute to the best future for the faculty and the built environment.