An extended argument of what participation might be and mean in architecture. Probably my most ‘scholarly’ piece. Widely cited and (so my co-design colleagues tell me) respected.
My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.
A critique of masterplanning. On to something here, but yet to be developed.
This is the text of a short talk I did as part of the UAL Climate Emergency Network 5 day festival in September 2020. It picks up on some of the themes of Architecture After Architecture
The catalogue of the British Pavilion at the 2006 Venice Architecture Biennale, with essays by me (the ones on scale are here), and an introduction - a love letter to Sheffield - by Go! Sheffield. Designed by the very brilliant Ian Anderson of The Designers Republic, so worth your £5 for that alone. The British Council website has a scammy scan of the catalogue.
Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.
A podcast with me being interviewed by two great CSM students from the MA Culture, Criticism and Curation course - discussing art education at Central Saint Martins in relation to the contemporary condition
A short think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to architecture.
Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.
My first published work. Oh, what a clever young chappy I was. Sanctimonious posturing.
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.
Short and a bit inconsequential riposte to Markus Miessen’s Nightmare of Participation.
Architecture Depends
Sticky opening (I was reading Kant at the time) but better later on issues of time in architecture.
More or less what it says on the tin — facts that were correct in early 2012.
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.
With Tatjana Schneider. A comprehensive survey of Flexible Housing design. Winner 2007 RIBA President’s Award for Outstanding University based research, with judges saying: ‘An exemplary body of architecturally-relevant research’ offering comparative design plans, well-researched historical referencing, a new classification system and a practical manual/tool kit. An innovative and brave approach?? There is a long and useful, if quite critical, review by John Habraken (who is one of the book’s heroes). The book is beautifully designed by Ben Weaver, who also did Spatial Agency and Architecture & Participation.