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Catch CAT on radio 4, this Sunday at 11.15am
Listen to the BBC audio slideshow here Centre for Alternative Technology – Audio Slideshow from Whistledown Productions on Vimeo.
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Three of a Kind: Two Missions: One School of Architecture: CAT
The Centre for Alternative Technology is delighted to be displaying work from three of its Professional Diploma in Architecture students at the first ever Wales Festival of Architecture. Running six weeks long from 23rd March to 4th May, Aberystwyth Arts Centre is playing host to the to the new festival. Organisers aim to stimulate discussion about architecture, providing an opportunity to demonstrate and discuss the wide range of economic, social and environmental benefits that well-designed buildings can bring to a community. The Festival will provide a forum for architects, planners and other professionals and the public to share views...
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A week at Ecobuild shows a strong CAT community
In the face of huge numbers of exhibitors and talks competing for attention at this year’s Ecobuild, the event was a welcome reminder that CAT still offers something unique in the world of sustainable design. Ecobuild 2013 was a massive event. With over 1,500 exhibitors, nearly 60,000 attendees, and dozens of conferences and seminars, it’s fantastic that so many visitors managed to find their way to the CAT stall. The Internet has been alive with comments about the Ecobuild experience, tweeting about everything from the need for more power sockets to a call for more humanitarian and student organisations. This...
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What are they doing now? We catch up with former students
As part of a new series of blogs we will be talking to some of our former students about what they are doing now. This week Mauritz Lindeque tells us about how his thesis in MSc in Architecture and Advanced, Environmental and Energy studies has influenced his career. I was a Distance learning student on the MSc AEES program. I was living in Tanzania at the time that I started on the program. The job and responsibilities that I had while in Tanzania was as a development manager for a hunting company. We managed 9 Mill Acres of land in...
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What are they doing now? We catch up with CAT students…
As part of a new series of blogs we will be talking to some of our ex students about what they’re doing now. This week Magnus Murray tells us about how his MSc in Architecture and Advanced, Environmental and Energy studies brought a new dimension to his humanitarian and international development work. I was part of the 2006 – 2008 AEES course, full time at CAT, it was great and I learned so much. Since then I returned to my former world of humanitarian aid and international development. I was recruited by the British Government’s Department for International Development...
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Inspiring new video about the CAT Graduate School for the Environment
A short film directed and edited by Dylan Byrne exploring the MSc in Renewable Energy and Built Environment at the Centre for Alternative Technology. With interviews from students and tutors including Hugh Piggot, guest lecturer and wind energy specialist. Dylan Byrne is a student at CAT Graduate School for the Environment and a film maker. Further information about his work can be found here. Music for the film has been provided with thanks, from Ember
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Podcast: what will the next 40 years of the environmental movement bring?
Two weeks ago students on our MSc Architecture: Advanced Environmental and Energy Studies course came to CAT for the annual politics module. This time, the module featured discussions on everything from green economics to behaviour change, and we’ll be presenting some of these lectures as podcasts in the coming weeks. At the end of the week, students got a chance to put their questions to an expert panel featuring CAT’s media officer Kim Bryan, CAT’s external relations officer and Zero Carbon Britain director Paul Allen and Green Party Councillor Andrew Cooper. This podcast is an excerpt from the end of...
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Lewin on the biomass module
This month was the start of our first double practical module. There were two modules running in parallel this month, biomass heating and wind farms. I’d chosen biomass as it’s something I’d never studied before, and doesn’t require spending as much time on wet Welsh hilltops. (Although the worst of the snow seemed to have passed CAT by, torrential rain caused some fairly serious flooding towards the end of the week and kept us on our toes). The week kicked off on Wednesday morning with a day learning about the various types of biomass heating system from Duncan Kerridge from...
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How can we overcome political and environmental barriers for change?
The Centre for Alternative Technology hosted it’s first environmental question time earlier this month. The subject for discussion was politics. A whole host of questions were put forward by CAT’s postgraduate students and also by the general public online via twitter. The event was part of the politics module for the MSc Architecture: Advanced Environmental and Energy Studies course and gave postgraduate students the opportunity to discuss the subjects they have been studying. On the panel were Paul Allen, project co-ordinator for Zero Carbon Britain; Kim Bryan, CAT’s media officer and a freelance writer on environmental issues; and Andrew Cooper...
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AEES student Howard Miller on the recent politics module
Part of the Msc in Architecture, Advanced Environmental and Energy studies at CAT is the politics module. It is a week crammed full of lectures, debates and workshops designed to give a broad perspective of ‘environmentalism’ and enable students to delve a little deeper into the politics. In this blog post Howard Miller, a student who took part in the module reflects on his learning experience. As a long time subscriber to ‘The Economist’, the module awakened me to my ‘Green Capitalist’ theoretical standpoint. This is the idea that free market capitalism can be tweaked by adding green ‘compensatory’ measures...
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Photo: ProfDip shows
This is just one example of the fantastic work from our Professional Diploma students at CAT, who were on-site this week. The ProfDip is for architecture students who want to specialise in sustainable building. CAT offers a range of options for studying architecture and green building.
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CAT’s Graduate School for the Environment on Al Jazeera
The Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) in Wales is a living laboratory for environmental technologies. It is unique in combining hands-on experience with top-grade academic teaching. CAT’s training and education programmes are helping bridge the substantial skill gap that currently exist in the green technology sector; creating experts with the knowledge, understanding and ability that the world needs to speed the transition to a low carbon economy.
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Congratulations to Britain’s leading women in sustainable architecture
We are delighted to see that Blanche Cameron from RESET development and former tutor at CAT, Trish Andrews tutor on the professional diploma course, Fran Bradshaw a visiting tutor, Anna Surgenor graduate of CAT’s Msc Advanced Environmental and Energy studies , Sue Roaf and Sarah Wigglesworth, course participant in straw bale building have been listed in the Architects Journal, Women in Sustainable Architecture article. The list recognises some of the UK’s leading women architects who are working to make sustainability an integral part of building design. Fran Bradshaw, said: ‘We like people – that’s why and how we design. Together...
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CAT Professional Diploma Architecture Show 2013
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Podcast: how will we create sustainable cities?
In a lecture to students on our masters course in Advanced Environmental and Energy Studies, Bryce Gilroy-Scott discusses how cities can be more sustainable. Given that our current lifestyles are not in tune with nature and planetary boundaries, how will we build living places with the right technology, as well as providing for our social and spiritual needs? Previous podcasts
