Author: Burutapen

“Help women and girls achieve their ambitions” #PledgeForParity

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Today is International Women’s Day, #IWD2017 , and like every year, I use the opportunity to renew my pledge and commitment to fellow women. Since I was a child my paternal mother, a railway engineer, inspired the family to pursue a professional career through her example; my maternal grandmother through her compassion and creativity and my mum through her sheer determination. Now, it is my turn to inspire my nieces. As regional Chair for #NAWICUK & Ireland, in London and the South East, I volunteer side by side with a fantastic team of committed individuals to redefine the future of the industry we feel so passionate about. And today, (with them) I will aim to inspire the girls at Preston Manor, London, to look beyond the role models presented to them by the media into a wider range of opportunities which can literally shape the future of our cities. If you wonder, what is it that you could do to support the same pledge, I would like to share some suggestions for there are many things we can do …

Portraits

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(From my Behance Portfolio which i am in the process of deleting) Project for CZWG Architects Llp. Website / CV/Profile Photographs The brief for this project was to create a set of portraits that matched the style that the company’s original photographer, the wonderful Janie Airey, had set for the company’s image. Since she was last employed to do so, there were both new arrivals who needed to be photographed and people who were keen to have their photograph updated. I am quite pleased with the results, from the portrait point of view, as they are a good reflection of the person behind the image. The light, though, was inconsistent as it was all natural light dependant. Giorgos, Greek Architect Photograph by Cristina Lanz Azcarate Vivianna, Italian Senior Architect Photograph by Cristina Lanz Azcarate Carol, Irish Architectural Technician Photograph by Cristina Lanz Azcarate Carol, Irish Architectural Technician Photograph by Cristina Lanz Azcarate Alex, Bulgarian Architectural Technician Photograph by Cristina Lanz Azcarate Marilia, Brazilian Architect-to-be Photograph by Cristina Lanz Azcarate Siobhan, English Architect-to-be Photograph by Cristina Lanz Azcarate Yasmine, Iranian Architect to be Photograph …

New LinkedIn Layout – A Very Different Desktop Experience

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Article first published on my Scoopit  (LINK) on the 24th of January 2017 “Burutapen’s insight: LinkedIn has become the standard way to keep your personal/professional database up to date. By removing the need to keep updating your contacts’ details and making each individual responsible for updating their own, the Social Network became one of the most useful tools in the belt. Unfortunately, the same free services which tend to engage audiences are often victims of their own success and once more 2017 has seen some of the benefits which Linked offered stripped to the core. With those changes, accessibility has been made difficult as so have other things which we had grown accustomed to taking for granted.  Luckily, I have found a rather useful list to get around some of the initial frustrations you will be experiencing when you get back to the work mode. (Did you know only circa 22/25% of registered users actually use LinkedIn?)  “

My Design Museum review

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Article first published on my Scoopit  (LINK) on the 10th of December 2016  “Burutapen’s insight: The Design Museum opened its doors in its new venue only a few days ago and as the curious architect with a passion for design I am, I could not resist the offer and join my husband and friends on a first visit. Having heard many comments about Pawson’s design choices for such an iconic building, I was mentally prepared to like/dislike what I saw. What I was not prepared for were the invisible barriers (physical and social) I encountered throughout a building. To say that the building is behind in terms of accessibility and inclusion is an understatement: Separate facilities and no access to the ground floor cafe for anyone on a wheelchair or pushing a pram, as well as narrow displays within vast empty areas connected by retrofitted mini ramps, are just a few of the things I noticed. Furthermore, although the Design Museum had expressed the desire to make Design more accessible to the general public by offering free …

My speech at the London Build Expo 2017

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First published on the 27th of October at the NAWIC website (LINK) “Good morning everyone It is great to be back at London Build and continue to be part of what has rapidly stablished as a regular fixture of our industry’s calendar as well as NAWIC’s own . NAWIC or The National Association of Women in Construction, for those who don’t know us, is one of the world’s longest running women lead cross discipline organisations within the construction industry. Founded in Texas, in 1955, it emerged from a small network of women who were active in the industry and already in business with each other. It started as a support network looking to create a platform from which the female working in the industry could achieve their full potential. In the words of Alise Ashley , one of the founding members, these were women with electricity in their veins and cement dust on their shoes. Over the years, NAWIC has grow to become a global organisation with presence in he USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand …

WOW WICE Awards

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First published on the NAWIC Website (LINK) Last Thursday, 19th of May, the winners of the 2016 WICE awards were announced in a beautiful ceremony at the Hilton Southwalk in London. The European Women in Construction and Engineering awards, is an annual event set up by Zars Media to raise the profile of those women who are doing a great job within our industry. Cristina Lanz-Azcarate, London and South East Chair for NAWIC was a judge for this year’s edition and she has agreed to narrate her experience , as an insider, here: “ When I was asked to be a judge at the 2016 WICE awards, I was very touched. As a woman fully dedicated to the industry, since I took upon myself to join the world of architecture, I have been lucky to work with some remarkable women who kept telling me how impressed they were with my work ; while being completely unaware of how incredible THEY are. During the many years I worked in commercial practices and particularly since becoming a Regional …

Euskera, our language

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I have lived in London for a long time and more often than not people are surprised to hear that I am Basque at the question of “where are you from?” My accent is the combination of the languages I speak (English, Spanish and Basque) with my basic Japanese and my husband’s accent. As a result, more often than not, people are unsure of its providence. People are even more surprised when they realise that English is my third language and that Basque (Euskera for us) is an actual pre indo-European language with unknown origins. (there is a fantastic page on Wikipedia where all your questions may be responded, link here) So this year, I have taken upon myself to share a few useful words with those of you out there who will be traveling to my homeland for that I know that it will be greatly appreciated by the locals the fact that you are making an effort. (I also know that British are keen to learn a few words of local languages before traveling to …

Taylor Wessing 2015: a theme & the odd one out

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I know a very experienced photographer who, each year, attends this exhibition with his photographer friends. During their visit, each looks at the images separately, analyse the themes/threads that run across the awarded works, and dissect them at the pub to understand the judges criteria. When I first heard about it, I thought it was a rather mathematical  approach, especially for an art award. I wondered whether it could possibly be as easy as he suggested to see those emerging topics and so, yesterday, after reading a reference within the ES magazine that reminded me it was that time of the year already, I decided to take on the challenge and see for myself.