Last week I had a night of firsts. I paid my first visit to the Gopher Hole, a new project venue in Hoxton, where I attended my first event coordinated by London Metropolitan University ASD department (Faculty of Architecture and Spatial Design) which just so happened to be a Pecha Kucha night – my first.

Ironically the evening was not a first for faces. The jammed packed room was full of friendly, familiar people, some of whom I have worked with. Some were the faces I spent long hours in the studio with at University, instantly recognisable from the fear in their eyes as they near the end of their first Diploma year studies, back at University.

Rip It Up And Start Again was commissioned by Robert Mull and Kieran Long of ASD, it is a digital archive of the departments lecture series and will be used to initiate nights, such as Pecha Kucha, where ASDs lecture series will become a basis for discussion and debate.

The best thing about the Pecha Kucha set up is its pace, it moves quickly and provides the audience with constant stimulation as the speaker rushes through an abundance of images. In this case, the speakers were a mix of postgraduate students and architectural professionals. The students held their own well in discussion and referenced their projects against the lectures, while the professionals, with a little more experience behind them, lifted the evening and provided the broader discussion which opened up the lecture series.

I wish ASD every success with Rip It Up And Start Again; I think it will prove to be a valuable research tool, accessible to students from any architecture school and a broader professional audience.

You can view full transcripts, recordings and presentations of the ASD lecture series on ‘Rip It Up And Start Again’, including the Pecha Kucha presentations.

The Gopher Hole is a new project space in Hoxton founded by Aberrant Architecture and Beatrice Galilee. It is currently showing ‘About a minute’, an exhibition from 15 architects, writers, poets and designers each interpreting the potential of 59 seconds.

Pecha Kucha 20x20 originated in Tokyo in 2003. Devised by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of Klein Dytham architecture, Pecha Kucha has taken place in nearly 400 cities worldwide, many of these events are documented on the Pecha Kucha website.