The keynote article for Architectural Review's 1500 issue. Draws heavily on the joint research with MOULD
An invitation from the Italian journal STOA which I could not resist because the other invitee was Valerio Olgiati, whose take on architectural references is the polar opposite to mine. I swipe a bit, but maybe not hard enough, at his stance in this essay.
Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.
Not a lecture, but a podcast. The first episode from the new 'Architecture Academy' Podcast, set up and delivered by Marc Tuitt (who once was a student at Sheffield when I was Head of School). Under his wise questioning and sharp editing, I come across (though I say it myself) as sharp and focussed on some contemporary architectural issues (sexism, the profession, education and Brexit among them).
A short think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to architecture.
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
An outcome of the Architecture after Architecture research project, this short book was written collectively by members of the MOULD collective, including me.
Architecture is Climate reimagines the very foundations of architecture in an age of crises. Rejecting outdated paradigms of endless linear growth, technocratic fixes, and the separation of humans from nature, this provocative and hopeful book argues that architecture must be fundamentally rethought—not as the design of objects, but as a practice entangled with climate, politics, history, and social justice.
Through eight key themes—knowledge, economy, land, resources, infrastructure, work, policy, and culture—Architecture is Climate explores how climate breakdown reshapes every aspect of architectural thinking and doing. Drawing on diverse voices, and grounded examples from around the world, it offers not just a critique of the status quo but a vision of other possible architectures—and climates—already in the making.
The book is accompanied by a website www.architectureisclimate.net
The article when I found my voice. Stories, the everyday and a sprinkling of theory.
A short introduction to the book Architecture, Participation and Society, edited by Leslie Forsyth and Paul Jenkins in 2009
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.
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
Second of two, with some hints as to how to achieve flexible housing, much more developed in the book.
My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.
2021-24 AHRC-DFG funded research project in collaboration with Tatjana Schneider, looking at the implications of climate breakdown for spatial practice. Summary of project in the link. We formed a research collective, MOULD, to do the project, and work coming from the project is gathered together at the website MOULD. One of the main outputs of the project is the website Architecture is Climate, a resource that reimagines the future of architecture through its entanglement with climate breakdown.
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!
Another introduction, this time for ARQ, to projects arising out of the Spatial Agency project.
Chosen in open competition to curate the British Pavilion, I put together the best creative minds in Sheffield to present an echo of this wonderful city (the link takes you to my initial application, and I have to say the room data sheets are not bad). The team included: Ian Anderson, Tim Etchells, Hugo Glendinning, Encounters, Martyn Ware, and Jim Prevett. The show attempted to explain how a city is great beyond its buildings: it did not have much architecture in, which did not go down well with architects, especially those in London, who were doubly annoyed that a provincial academic was doing the show. But beyond the Clerkenwell goldfish bowl (with Ellis Woodman in particularly splenetic form, fortunately now behind a paywall), the exhibition was better received (i.e in Die Presse, Der Standard, Financial Times, The Architects Newspaper, The Times, The Yorkshire Post, and of course the Sheffield Telegraph)