The keynote article for Architectural Review's 1500 issue. Draws heavily on the joint research with MOULD
Reflections on 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale
Second of two, with some hints as to how to achieve flexible housing, much more developed in the book.
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
A large European funded research project for which was the project leader. Looking at the way the production of the built environment is affected under conditions of scarcity. In partnership with TU Vienna and Oslo School of Architecture, and working with Deljana Iossifova and Jon Goodbun at the University of Westminster and the SEED Foundation. A range of books, exhibitions and events came out of it (press the 'scarcity' link below to find some of them).The link is to our original application to the HERA (Humanities in the European Research Area). It was one of only 18 projects funded under the first HERA call, with over 200 applications submitted.
My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.
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.
On the basis of a pitch written on an iPhone on the top of a mountain in Ethiopia, I was invited to curate the UK Pavilion at the 2013 Shenzhen Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism. The eventual pavilion was curated, designed and produced by students and staff from Central Saint Martins, and took the theme of Liquid Boundaries - arguing the need to find ways through the hardening of space as it is being increasingly controlled, regulated and divided. The pavilion presented four films, each 129 seconds long (the average time someone spends in a national pavilion at the Venice Biennale), which interpreted briefs provided by four UK architects and spatial agents. All in their own way open up ways in which boundaries might be negotiated with, and in so doing a more democratic form of space emerges. More information, including a downloadable pamphlet and 'user manual', can be found on the Liquid Boundaries website.
On Park Hill as an example of welfare architecture and its current demise. My first foray into the work of Zygmunt Bauman.
In an idle moment I asked ChatGTP to "write a short statement in the style of the architecture critic Jeremy Till on the state of the architectural profession" The result is scarily good.
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 further explanation of my 30% pledge, which seems to have raised debate (see comments) elsewhere on the very wonderful Parlour website.
From Objects of Austerity to Processes of Scarcity. Text of presentation available through link above.
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.
Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.