The keynote article for Architectural Review's 1500 issue. Draws heavily on the joint research with MOULD
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.
Written in despair that it appears to have become an acceptable norm for architects to work in Saudi Arabia. I pick off the common justifications one by one. Published on the day that Saudi was awarded the World Cup in a piece of egregious sportwashing.
My closing speech at the main conference for What's the Point of Art School, a series of events organised by Central Saint Martins. The video of the speech, which was well-recieved, is here. Other talks, including brilliance from Johnny Vegas, are here. There was a good write up of the day in the Guardian.
My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.
Second of two, with some hints as to how to achieve flexible housing, much more developed in the book.
I was invited by Rory Sherlock and Francesca Romana DellAglio to do something around architectural education at the Architectural Association. We decided to do it as a meal around a big table, calling the event ‘Three Courses of Architectural Education. At the end of the first course, when I had set out how the first year of architectural education introduces a set of rituals and codes that initiate students into the culture of architecture, I asked each participant, who came from a wide range of schools, to write down a sentence or two that described a particularly weird happening in their first year. Most of the people present were recent graduates. The following are the unedited stories. Together they present a shocking picture of the state of architectural education.
Judy Willcocks, the Head of the Museum at Central Saint Martins, sat me down to cover my time from 2012-222 as Head of Central Saint Martins. We covered a lot of ground in 50 minutes, and it is a useful summary/memory of that period (at least for me)
Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.
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.
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
My essay on architectural research, Three Myths and One Model, is being translated into French, so I thought it was time to write a new introduction to it, because the argument felt a bit tired, presented as it was ten years ago.
My final tribute to PBJ
This is my glowing review of Barnabas Calder's new history of architecture, from the perspective of energy and climate. Spoiler alert: it is good.
Texts for the catalogue to the British Pavilion at the 2006 Venice Architecture Biennale. On ideas of scale and stories in cities.
Another piece on architectural education. Rather showy-offy, but was an finalist in the EAAE competition for writings in architectural education that year.
A short think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to architecture.