"Continue to contaminate your bed, and one day you will suffocate in your own waste" Duwamish chief Seattle to Pres… https://t.co/qTXguYJazz

Architecture After Architecture Research Project

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.

Architecture Academy: Podcast

Not a lecture, but a podcast. The first episode from the new 'Architecture Academy' Podcast, set up and delivered by Marc Tuitt (who once was a student at Sheffield when I was Head of School). Under his wise questioning and sharp editing, I come across (though I say it myself) as sharp and focussed on some contemporary architectural issues (sexism, the profession, education and Brexit among them).

Design after Design

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

Nature Unlocks Architecture

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.

Architecture Criticism against the Climate Clock

The keynote article for Architectural Review's 1500 issue. Draws heavily on the joint research with MOULD

The sucked bottom

This was a comment on the UK Government's White Paper on Higher Education from 2011. Corrects a few myths.

The King is Dead!Long Live the Queen!

Short and a bit inconsequential riposte to Markus Miessen’s Nightmare of Participation.

The Negotiation of Hope

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.

Architecture after Architecture

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.

Flexible Housing, the means to the end (with Tatjana Schneider)

Second of two, with some hints as to how to achieve flexible housing, much more developed in the book.

We need to talk about Saudi Arabia

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.

Competitive Strain Syndrome

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.

Flexible Housing, Opportunities and Limits (with Tatjana Schneider)

First of two articles setting out the preliminary argument for the book, Flexible Housing. Apparently, one of ARQ's most cited ever article.

Glossing over the cracks

My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.

Occupational Hazards: Architectural Review

A short think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to architecture.

Flexible Housing: 2007: Architectural Press

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.

Three Myths and One Model

Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.