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.
My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.
A worthy piece that begins to unpick notions of autonomy in architecture. Good opening, slightly ploddy continuation.
On the dangers and vanities of form. Written when I was wading through my philosophy degree and it shows.
The keynote article for Architectural Review's 1500 issue. Draws heavily on the joint research with MOULD
A critique of masterplanning. On to something here, but yet to be developed.
On Park Hill as an example of welfare architecture and its current demise. My first foray into the work of Zygmunt Bauman.
This is the transcribed text of my speech closing the What's the Point of Art School conference at Central Saint Martins in May 2013. It reads rather crudely, but the points are made
A lecture given as part of the The UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose’s lecture series “Rethinking Public Value and Public Purpose in 21st Century Capitalism”. It is the first run out of what happens when the ideas I have been developing in architecture for some years get rolled out to the wider field of design.
A project with Helen Storey of the London College of Fashion and Tony Ryan of the University of Sheffield, arising out of their Free Radicals project. At heart a really good idea of diversifying the way that research is chosen, procured and delivered, allowing others beyond the academic circle to become involved in the processes and ideas of research. A report generously funded by the Wellcome Foundation sets out the stall. Now looking for ways of effecting it.
Short piece examining local identity, starting with a pop at Frampton’s Critical Regionalism.
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.
A research project funded by AHRC done with Tatjana Schneider and Nishat Awan at the University of Sheffield, gathering together numerous examples of how to use architectural intelligence beyond the production of objects, and in particular in terms of social and political agency. As part of the project we curated the 2009 RIBA Research Symposium (and Jonathan Charley’s video piece on the site is wonderful), produced a book, a website & various articles, and edited two special issues one of field: the other of ARQ. The project was awarded the 2011 RIBA President’s Award for Outstanding University-based Research, making me the only person to have received this internationally important award three times.
A bit of a cheat, because it is really the second chapter of Architecture Depends
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