astronomy

Pete Silver & Will McLean

Pete Silver & Will McLean is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Pete Silver & Will McLean rather than just read about it. In short: Pete Silver & Will McLean are two British architectural practitioners, educators, writers, and technical theorists who work together as a duo. They have taught at the Architectural Association, The Bartlett (University College London), and The University of Westminster's School of Architecture and the Built environment, thus gaining a privileged position in the contemporary London architectural scene.

Key takeaways

Pete Silver & Will McLean belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Pete Silver & Will McLean to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Pete Silver & Will McLean from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Pete Silver & Will McLean are two British architectural practitioners, educators, writers, and technical theorists who work together as a duo. They have taught at the Architectural Association, The Bartlett (University College London), and The University of Westminster's School of Architecture and the Built environment, thus gaining a privileged position in the contemporary London architectural scene.

Background Will McLean is a Doctor of Philosophy and artist Bruce McLean's son. He trained at the Architectural Association under Will Alsop OBE RA and Professor John Frazer. McLean has worked on a series of projects with Bruce McLean, most notably Dalry Primary School in North Ayrshire completed in 2007 (www.primaryspace.net), and with US architect and artist Adam Kalkin, working on such projects as 'Quik Build' container housing. He has had a regular feature, covering technical innovations, in Architectural Design magazine - McLean's Nuggets, and was an Editor of Construction History - the International Journal of the Construction History Society. Pete Silver worked for Solon Housing Association in South London with architects such as Patrick Keiller, Edward Cullinan and Walter Segal. He trained at the Architectural Association under Professors John Frazer and Gordon Pask, and became a researcher in the Land Use Research Unit at King's College London, gaining a unique insight into Professor Alice Coleman's ground-breaking, if controversial work on post-war housing regeneration. Silver was for many years a director of the Chartered Practice Architects (CPA) Ltd. and holds a UK patent - GB2594037 - for a novel type of lightweight, structural diagrid.

Collaborative career In 2001, Silver and McLean joined the School of Architecture and the Built environment at the University of Westminster in order to jointly head the Technical Studies Department. They have co-curated a highly successful public lecture series and co-authored six books around the subject of architectural technology:

Fabrication: the designer's guide (Architectural Press); Introduction to Architectural Technology (Laurence King Publishing - available in 9 languages). Note: for this publication, the authors devised new, simplified taxonomies for structural components and for structural logic as a basis for the work of Heino Engel and others; Structural Engineering for Architects: A Handbook (Laurence King Publishing, co-authored with engineer Peter Evans - available in 4 languages); Air Structures (Laurence King Publishing); Environmental Design Sourcebook: Innovative Ideas for a Sustainable Built Environment (RIBA Publications); Sustainable and Regenerative Materials for Architecture - a sourcebook (Laurence King Publishing).

Bibliography Frazer J.H (1995), An Evolutionary Architecture, Themes VII, Architectural Association, London, UK. (Contributions by Silver) (out of print but free download at http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/publications/ea/intro.html Archived 1 July 2016 at the Wayback Machine) Silver, Pete and McLean, William and Veglio, Simon (2006) Fabrication: the designers guide: the illustrated works of twelve specialist UK fabricators, Architectural Press, Oxford, UK. ISBN 0-7506-6558-0 Silver, Pete and McLean, William (2008) An Introduction to Architectural Technology, Laurence King, London, UK ISBN 978-1-85669-566-4 (Second Edition published 2013, Third Edition published 2021) Silver, Pete and McLean, William and Evans, Peter (2014) Structural Engineering for Architects: A Handbook, Laurence King, London, UK ISBN 978-1-78067-055-3 McLean, William and Silver, Pete (2015) Air Structures, Laurence King (in the series Form + Technique), London, UKISBN 978-1-78067-482-7 McLean, William and Silver, Pete (2021) Environmental Design Sourcebook: Innovative Ideas for a Sustainable Built Environment, RIBA Publications, London, UK ISBN 9781859469606 McLean, William and Silver, Pete (2025) Sustainable and Regenerative Materials for Architecture - a sourcebook, Laurence King London, UK ISBN 978-1529433272 McLean, William (2008) Quik Build: Adam Kalkin’s ABC of Container Architecture, Bibliothèque McLean, London, UK ISBN 978-0-9558868-0-5(Also in the series Form + Technique, see: Rivas Adrover, Esther (2015) Deployable Structures, Laurence King, London, UK ISBN 978-1-78067-483-4) Periodicals

Pete Silver and Peter Fluck (2001) Non-Linear dynamical Systems, In: A.D. Magazine, Architectural Design Profile No 123. Silver et al., (2001) Prototypical Applications of Cybernetic Systems in Architectural Contexts, In: Kybernetes, Volume 30 Number 7/8. McLean, William (2005–2009) McLean's nuggets. In: Architectural Design (various). Wiley, Chichester, UK. McLean, William and Silver, Pete (2019) AMPS Proceedings 17-2 - Education, Design and Practice – Understanding skills in a Complex World, Technical Skills for Students of Architecture.

Hosted Lectures The Technical Studies Lectures, hosted by the University of Westminster, offers a platform for the dissemination of ideas from such speakers as those in the following, non-exhaustive list (archived at https://www.youtube.com/@WillMcLeanTechnicalStudies/videos and at https://technicalstudies.tumblr.com/):

Simon Allford, Will Alsop, Michael Ashby, Philip Ball, Gianni Botsford, Dave Carr-Smith, Andrew Cripps, Alex De Rijke, John Frazer, Thomas Heatherwick, Richard Horden, Eva Jiricna, Patrick Keiller, Tim Macfarlane, Ben Morris, Martin Pawley, Sergio Pellegrino (James Watt International Medal), Cedric Price, Esther Rivas Adrover, Rupert Sheldrake, Julien Vincent, John Zerning. Former students include:

Paul Bavister, Jason Bruges, Andrew Whiting, Usman Haque, Chris Leung Book launch for Environmental Design Sourcebook, recorded at the University of Westminster: see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZhJdlH0KTI Pete Silver on AI - What is it? And why now? recorded at the University of Westminster: see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDkN--7z-kE&t=192s

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Pete Silver & Will McLean

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Pete Silver & Will McLean claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Pete Silver & Will McLean before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Pete Silver & Will McLean ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Pete Silver & Will McLean

In research: Pete Silver & Will McLean appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Pete Silver & Will McLean in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Pete Silver & Will McLean is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 21st-century English architects, Academics of the University of Westminster, Alumni of the Architectural Association School of Architecture, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Pete Silver & Will McLean outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Pete Silver & Will McLean in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Pete Silver & Will McLean means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Pete Silver & Will McLean out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Pete Silver & Will McLean in simple terms?

Why does Pete Silver & Will McLean matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Pete Silver & Will McLean?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Pete Silver & Will McLean.