Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.
My contribution to Sarah Wigglesworth’s great book on our house, Stock Orchard Street. Outlines the tensions of being an architect-client.
On Park Hill as an example of welfare architecture and its current demise. My first foray into the work of Zygmunt Bauman.
Not my musing, but that of my brother Nick Till. Nails the issues around Margaret Thatcher's funeral rather beautifully in two paragraphs
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.
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.
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
2021-24 AHRC-DFG funded research project in collaboration with Tatjana Schneider, looking at the implications of the climate emergency for spatial practice. Summary of project in the link. Work in progress on this project is gathered together at the website of the research collective MOULD, www.mould.earth
The article when I found my voice. Stories, the everyday and a sprinkling of theory.
Early stuff on research and first ideas on contingency. Others like this more than I do. Big in China.
My last (ever?) building as an architect, designed with Sarah Wigglesworth. Made of straw and stuff. Best known for being on Grand Designs, the video of which is online. Sarah’s wonderful book on the project views it from all sides. Winner of the RIBA Sustainability Award, a Civic Trust Award and some others. Lots and lots of reviews of the project, including the Observer, and, and, ... A 2021 film of it by Jim Stephenson is here, with a discussion afterwards. We live in it and are happy.
Second of two, with some hints as to how to achieve flexible housing, much more developed in the book.
A short think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to architecture.
An obituary written for the Architectural Review and Architects Journal, just a few days after the tragic loss of PBJ.
My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.
Really just a transcription of a lecture — ideas on housing, the everyday and occupation over form.