Milo Lecture

The 2008 Peter Milo Memorial Lecture was given this year by British architect David Nixon a co-founder of the London office of Future Systems and currently the principal of Altus Associates in Los Angeles. He has been involved in the space field since 1984 and his office has carried out space and ground projects for clients such as NASA, the European Space Agency, McDonnell Douglas and British Aerospace. It is no surprise that the topic of his excellently illustrated lecture was 'An Architect's Guide to the International Space Station'. This gave a very clear view of the design and technical issues which had to be resolved in the setting up of the space station and presented some truly amazing statistics.

In a radical shift away from the format of previous Milo lectures and, it must be said, the majority of Livery Company lectures, the lecture was given in Drapers' Hall and was the precursor to a wider event billed as Extreme Architecture II - A Space Odyssey. Spread through the duration of a 3 course black tie dinner were further illustrated talks by David Nixon on Britain's role in space exploration and Jonathan Firth of Virgin Galactic whose topic was Space for Everyone.In this he drew heavily on the proposals prepared (as a winning competition entry) by Foster and Partners for the inter-galactic space station in the USA. He also dealt with the visionary plans from the Virgin Group to make space travel (in Sir Richard Branson's words, 'the final frontier') a realistic possibility for anyone with an adequate bank balance in the near future.

There was to have been a third speaker - Australian Oceanographer and astronaut Dr Paul Scully-Power. Sadly, he was prevented from travelling as a result of a family bereavement. He did, none the less, allow the use of many of the photographs he took on his Challenger voyage and asked that a prepared statement be read to the assembled guests.

The evening was set up and compered by William Murray in great style.