A long piece on Trump-Brexit-Architecture. I was nervous doing it because I thought everything had been said, but thought there was an urgency, so any contribution felt worthwhile
My longest piece on architectural education. Finalist in EAAE competition. Maybe should have won, but the judges, Perez-Gomez and Palaasma, rose to my bait of inauthentic phenomenology and sulked.
A short think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to architecture.
My main statement of intent, which has been extensively reviewed (collected here) and featured on BBC Radio 3 and 4. The contents are available on the MIT Press website, as are pdfs of the preface and introduction. A version of Chapter 2 was published in field: and is available as a pdf. Winner 2009 RIBA President’s Award for Outstanding University based research.
Ten Theses on Scarcity
Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.
On the dangers and vanities of form. Written when I was wading through my philosophy degree and it shows.
Another piece on architectural education. Rather showy-offy, but was an finalist in the EAAE competition for writings in architectural education that year.
Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.
Very early thoughts from our Scarcity and Creativity project. Now looks rather crude.
Spatial Agency and Design Activism
Another introduction, this time for ARQ, to projects arising out of the Spatial Agency project.
Umeå School of Architecture, as part of their 'Making Architecture Politically" lecture series. A new lecture. Quite bossy but clear about the issues. Video is here. Starts about 50mins in with a very generous introduction from Roemer Van Toorn (whose writing is always worthwhile).
My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.
First thoughts on spatial agency, better developed in the book.
On the basis of a pitch written on an iPhone on the top of a mountain in Ethiopia, I was invited to curate the UK Pavilion at the 2013 Shenzhen Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism. The eventual pavilion was curated, designed and produced by students and staff from Central Saint Martins, and took the theme of Liquid Boundaries - arguing the need to find ways through the hardening of space as it is being increasingly controlled, regulated and divided. The pavilion presented four films, each 129 seconds long (the average time someone spends in a national pavilion at the Venice Biennale), which interpreted briefs provided by four UK architects and spatial agents. All in their own way open up ways in which boundaries might be negotiated with, and in so doing a more democratic form of space emerges. More information, including a downloadable pamphlet and 'user manual', can be found on the Liquid Boundaries website.