2014 UQ ARCHITECTURE LECTURE SERIES–Robert Beson

The 2014 UQ Architecture lecture series is here! This Tuesday 13 May will feature Robert Beson from AR-MA.

To get your warmed up for Tuesday night, we asked Robert a few questions about what you can expect to hear from his lecture and what inspires his work…

What does a typical day look like for you?
Generally, everything we do is related to the design and delivery of complex architectural projects. Although each project is radically different, they each share a few things in common: short time-frames, extreme design resolution, and most importantly, the design of logistical, fabrication, and installation processes.

A typical day would start with site meetings from 7am - 9am followed by about three to four hours of email, phone correspondence and office meetings. I try to get most of my communication done in the morning in order to free up my afternoon for design work. The afternoon would usually consist of sketching design and fabrication details in my notebook and then testing them through a range of 3D modeling programs, usually Maya and Rhino. We spend a lot of time in house writing algorithms and scripts to automate most of our modeling and documentation.

 
Where do you go to get design inspiration?
Everywhere high and low; art, architecture, and literature: In particular, I will flick through thousands of images on tumblr blogs and ffffound. I have a few favourites that mostly concern themselves with the representation of contemporary culture that ranges from fashion to war.

- Phylogenesis, foas' ark by FOA

- Far From Equilibrium by Sanford Kwinter

- Kissing Architecture by Sylvia Lavin

- The Projective Cast: Architecture and Its Three Geometries by Robin Evans

What has been your greatest achievement?
Starting a firm and making wages.
Outside of Design, what inspires your work?
Cinema and literature: recently some novels by China Mieville, Perdido Street Station and The City and the City. 

Who is your double doppelgänger?
Daniel Craig and Beck.