My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.
The presentation from a keynote that I gave at Polimi as part of the Architecture Unlocks Nature conference. I felt the need to reverse the title of the conference to reflect that our sensibility needs to shift to one that puts nature in the driving seat.
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.
Another piece on architectural education. Rather showy-offy, but was an finalist in the EAAE competition for writings in architectural education that year.
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
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 book and Architecture & Participation. The link is to an almost final version of the pdf of the book.
The keynote article for Architectural Review's 1500 issue. Draws heavily on the joint research with MOULD
Editorial for the third issue of the Italian Journal Ardeth, for which I was guest editor. The issue theme was ‘Money’
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.
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.
A research project funded AHRC and done with Tatjana Schneider at the University of Sheffield, looking at the history and contemporary possibilities of housing that is designed for future change and adaptation. The project resulted in a book and a number of articles, two of which are apparently among the most cited of ARQ articles. Winner 2007 RIBA President’s Award for Outstanding University-based Research. The link is to the almost final version of the book, which was beautifully designed by Ben Weaver.
A short think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to architecture.
More or less what it says on the tin — facts that were correct in early 2012.
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.
Second of two, with some hints as to how to achieve flexible housing, much more developed in the book.
Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.
On Park Hill as an example of welfare architecture and its current demise. My first foray into the work of Zygmunt Bauman.