This is a rare one where I write specifically about buildings, or in this case the subtlety of the plans of Proctor Matthews Architects. Online here, pdf here.
A short piece written in 2012 for the RIBA Building Futures series on the future of architectural education and the profession. More bullish than I now feel.
Retrofit under conditions of scarcity. Pdf of presentation is here. Background to day here
A short think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to architecture.
Texts for the catalogue to the British Pavilion at the 2006 Venice Architecture Biennale. On ideas of scale and stories in cities.
This was a comment on the UK Government's White Paper on Higher Education from 2011. Corrects a few myths.
An obituary written for the Architectural Review and Architects Journal, just a few days after the tragic loss of PBJ.
Sticky opening (I was reading Kant at the time) but better later on issues of time in architecture.
An extended argument of what participation might be and mean in architecture. Probably my most ?scholarly? piece.
My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.
An interview with the portuguese journal arqa. In portuguese, so translation below. On scarcity, politics and the need for alternatives. Done the day of Thatcher's funeral, so pretty gloomy.
Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.
Chosen in open competition to curate the British Pavilion, I put together the best creative minds in Sheffield to present an echo of this wonderful city (the link takes you to my initial application, and I have to say the room data sheets are not bad). The team included: Ian Anderson, Tim Etchells, Hugo Glendinning, Encounters, Martyn Ware, and Jim Prevett. The show attempted to explain how a city is great beyond its buildings: it did not have much architecture in, which did not go down well with architects, especially those in London, who were doubly annoyed that a provincial academic was doing the show. But beyond the Clerkenwell goldfish bowl (with Ellis Woodman in particularly splenetic form, fortunately now behind a paywall), the exhibition was better received (i.e in Die Presse, Der Standard, Financial Times, The Architects Newspaper, The Times, The Yorkshire Post, and of course the Sheffield Telegraph )
A critique of masterplanning. On to something here, but yet to be developed.
Architecture Depends
With Nishat Awan and Tatjana Schneider. Out of the Spatial Agency project, the book provides supporting texts to the website. A summary of the issues is in our Architecture Today article, and an early review by Luke Butcher ishere, plus nice ones in archidose and arquilecturas. A short excerpt (on ecological examples of spatial agency) was published in field. Winner 2011 RIBA President’s Award for Outstanding University based research.