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
The first time that Tatjana and I used the term 'spatial agency'. It felt like a breakthrough. The ideas a much expanded upon in the book 'Spatial Agency'
Another introduction, this time for ARQ, to projects arising out of the Spatial Agency project.
The keynote article for Architectural Review's 1500 issue. Draws heavily on the joint research with MOULD
Thoughts on the London riots. I think good.
Rather a miserabilist piece, but gets in that fantastic Seneca quote: ‘Those were happy times before the days of architects.’
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.
A short think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to architecture.
Ten Theses on Scarcity. A lecture given in a tent on the steps of St Pauls during the Occupy London Stock Exchange period. Vocal audience who gave not a jot about my professorial authority. Rightly. Podcast, with the atmosphere of the occupation, is here.
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 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.
My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.
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.
Short piece on Samuel Mockbee and the Rural Studio, trying to find the line between adulation and critique.
Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.
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!
A lecture as part of the brilliant Architecture and Labour lecture series and symposium organised by Mel Dodd and the Spatial Practices team at Central Saint Martins, in association with Olly Wainwright. A properly writtten version of the lecture appears as a book chapter in The Competition Grid. I have pasted the text of the chapter in the link, and this is the link to the video of the lecture. My lecture starts at 54.30, but it is very worth watching Peggy Deamer first.