An essay based on a presentation to the Society of Architectural Historians, tracing various historical episodes of austerity.
My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.
The keynote article for Architectural Review's 1500 issue. Draws heavily on the joint research with MOULD
Lightish introduction to a whole issue of field (with articles worth reading); the start of the Spatial Agency Project.
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.
Working with colleagues at the University of Sheffield School of Architecture, most notably Prue Chiles and Carolyn Butterworth, we established the most developed live projects programme in the country, probably the world, with some truly wondrous results. For example, look at the final report (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) from a group of students that I supervised looking at the use of urine to make mud bricks in Darfur. It is remarkable what they achieved in six weeks - should be awarded a PhD for this alone IMHO.
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.
Sticky opening (I was reading Kant at the time) but better later on issues of time in architecture.
Unpicking the differences between scarcity and austerity, the implications for the built environment. Good twitter feedback. Translated into French courtesy of the great journal Criticat. Pdf of translation here.
My first published work. Oh, what a clever young chappy I was. Sanctimonious posturing.
Umeå School of Architecture, as part of their “Making Architecture Politically” lecture series. A new lecture. Quite bossy but clear about the issues. Video is here. Starts about 50mins in with a very generous introduction from Roemer Van Toorn (whose writing is always worthwhile).
Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.
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 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.
First of two articles setting out the preliminary argument for the book, Flexible Housing. Apparently, one of ARQ's most cited ever article.
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 short think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to architecture.