Reforming.
As part of the series ?The Social Production of Architecture?. Didn't go too well because I asked the question: Is Design Activism bad design and bad activism? This started a debate.
A lecture as part of the brilliant Architecture and Labour lecture series and symposium organised by Mel Dodd and the Spatial Practices team at Central Saint Martins, in association with Olly Wainwright. A properly writtten version of the lecture appears as a book chapter in The Competition Grid. I have pasted the raw text in the link, and this is the link to the video of the lecture. My lecture starts at 54.30, but it is very worth watching Peggy Deamer first.
A short think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to architecture.
For Occupied Times, the journal of the occupation movement. On austerity contra scarcity
Short piece on Samuel Mockbee and the Rural Studio, trying to find the line between adulation and critique.
Second of two, with some hints as to how to achieve flexible housing, much more developed in the book.
A very short piece for the Architects Journal on the possible effects of Brexit on creative education. See also my message to Central Saint Martins written the day the result was announced.
A further explanation of my 30% pledge, which seems to have raised debate (see comments) elsewhere on the very wonderful Parlour website.
My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.
Will the real user please stand up?
Entropic Research
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!
Shifting the Ground
In which I ask the question, if live projects are 'live' does this mean that the rest of architectural education is dead.
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.
Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.
A lecture on architectural education that I presented at The Agency Conference in Sydney in 2017, Yale Symposium on Rebuilding Architecture in 2018, and as part of the Bartlett International Lecture Series in 2018. It starts with the premise that architectural education is inherently conservative, and then spins out the argument from that uncomfortable start. The video link is from the Bartlett version. It did not go down universally well...
A critique of masterplanning. On to something here, but yet to be developed.