The Architecture of Good Intentions
Reflections on 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale
"Continue to contaminate your bed, and one day you will suffocate in your own waste" Duwamish chief Seattle to Pres… https://t.co/qTXguYJazz
Reflections on 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale
My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.
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.
Very early thoughts from our Scarcity and Creativity project. Now looks rather crude.
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
Edited with Sarah Wigglesworth. Now all this stuff appears, well, everyday but back then it was quite original. Buying it is a problem because the publishers discontinued it, but there are some sellers out there in the US. Essays and work by, among others, Sam Mockbee (of Rural Studio, his only published writing, of which we are proud to have persuaded him to do), Greil Marcus, Niall McLaughlin and Michael Marriott.
An essay based on a presentation to the Society of Architectural Historians, tracing various historical episodes of austerity.
Posted in honour of their 2014 RIBA Gold Medal Award. First published in Architectural Review in 2005 (and needs the drawings/pictures) A bit of a rave.
A short think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to architecture.
An essay on live projects written for a collection edited by Mel Dood and others from RMIT in Melbourne.
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.
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!
Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.
The foreword to Arna Mathiesen's great book Scarcity In Excess, which investigates the effects of scarcity on the built environment in Iceland following the economic crisis of 2008. Other excerpts of the book are on Issuu
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 extended argument of what participation might be and mean in architecture. Probably my most ‘scholarly’ piece. Widely cited and (so my co-design colleagues tell me) respected.
The keynote article for Architectural Review's 1500 issue. Draws heavily on the joint research with MOULD