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SUMMARY:Simulating Historic Landscapes - Beckford's Ride - Prof. Paul Rich
 ens Professor of Architectural Computing\, Centre for Advanced Studies in 
 Architecture\, University of Bath
DTSTART:20110202T131500Z
DTEND:20110202T141500Z
UID:TALK29454@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Juls Jun Chen
DESCRIPTION:*Abstract:* When the eccentric and reclusive connoisseur Willi
 am Beckford (1760-1844)\, having exhausted the largest inherited fortune i
 n England\, finally abandoned his doomed architectural\nextravaganza at Fo
 nthill Abbey\, he retired to Bath. His enthusiasm for tower-building soon 
 revived\, and with the help of his trusted gardener Vincent and an able yo
 ung architect Henry Goodrich he set about making a linear landscape garden
  stretching from his home in Lansdown Crescent to the hilltop 100m above. 
 Though the terminal buildings survive\, everything in between is now lost 
 beneath more recent development. Our project has been to recover the desig
 n and\nplanting of "Beckford's Ride" from written accounts\, contemporary 
 drawings\, and a few vestiges on the ground. This evidence we use to make 
 an interactive computer reconstruction using the very latest video-game te
 chnology (from Crytek in Germany). It will eventually become a permanent i
 nstallation at the Beckford's Tower museum.\n\n*Biography:* Paul Richens s
 tudied architecture at Cambridge\, and then joined Applied Research of Cam
 bridge\, founded by Lionel March\, Marcial Echenique and other members of 
 the Department\, where he developed some of the earliest architectural CAD
  software. He later returned to the Martin Centre\, and was its Director f
 rom 1992 to 2002 and sometime Vice Master of Churchill College. He has bee
 n Professor of Architectural Computing at the University of Bath since 200
 5.
LOCATION:First-floor Classroom\, Department of Architecture\, 1-5 Scroope 
 Terrace\, Cambridge\, CB2 1PX\, www.arct.cam.ac.uk.
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