Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.
In order to get a balanced view, all reviews from the very nice to the very nasty are included here.
This was my first Zoom lecture, delivered as part of the Architecture Foundation's excellent 100 Day Studio intiative during the 2020 COVID lockdown. The video is here , and the transcript linked to the title above. The lecture speculates as to where architecture might be in the face of the twin crises of climate and COVID, arguing that these challenge some of the fundaments on which the modern project of architecture has based itself.
From Objects of Austerity to Processes of Scarcity. Text of presentation available through link above.
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.
My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.
Text of my talk as part of the celebration of PBJ's life held at the University of Sheffield, 16th November 2016
Short piece examining local identity, starting with a pop at Frampton’s Critical Regionalism.
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.
A short think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to architecture.
Early stuff on research and first ideas on contingency. Others like this more than I do. Big in China.
A critique of masterplanning. On to something here, but yet to be developed.
An essay based on a presentation to the Society of Architectural Historians, tracing various historical episodes of austerity.
Another introduction, this time for ARQ, to projects arising out of the Spatial Agency project.
Architecture Depends
My contribution to the collection of fantastic photographs by Lisa Barnard of the former Tory Party Headquarters. The book, Chateau Despair, is an extraordinary document of the tawdry environment that Margaret Thatcher and her cohorts conducted their business in. Though I say it myself, I like my writing here, spurred by Lisa's great work. Buy the book!
A research project funded by AHRC done with Tatjana Schneider and Nishat Awan at the University of Sheffield, gathering together numerous examples of how to use architectural intelligence beyond the production of objects, and in particular in terms of social and political agency. As part of the project we curated the 2009 RIBA Research Symposium (and Jonathan Charley’s video piece on the site is wonderful), produced a book, a website & various articles, and edited two special issues one of field: the other of ARQ. The project was awarded the 2011 RIBA President’s Award for Outstanding University-based Research, making me the only person to have received this internationally important award three times.