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.
Architecture Depends/Spatial Ethics. Video of the lecture is here.
The keynote article for Architectural Review's 1500 issue. Draws heavily on the joint research with MOULD
A short think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to architecture.
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
Text of a short talk I gave at the RIBA during a seminar on the legacy of the Bauhaus.
With Nishat Awan and Tatjana Schneider. Out of the Spatial Agency project, the book provides supporting texts to the website. A summary of the issues is in our Architecture Today article, and an early review by Luke Butcher is here, plus nice ones in archidose and arquilecturas. A short excerpt (on ecological examples of spatial agency) was published in field. Winner 2011 RIBA President’s Award for Outstanding University based research.
A short think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to 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.
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.
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
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.
Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.
Working with colleagues at the University of Sheffield School of Architecture, most notably Prue Chiles and Carolyn Butterworth, we established the most developed live projects programme in the country, probably the world, with some truly wondrous results. For example, look at the final report (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) from a group of students that I supervised looking at the use of urine to make mud bricks in Darfur. It is remarkable what they achieved in six weeks - should be awarded a PhD for this alone IMHO.
A short piece written in 2012 for the RIBA Building Futures series on the future of architectural education and the profession. More bullish than I now feel.
When I was Head of Central Saint Martins, almost every year there was an article or radio programme lamenting the demise of the art school, often citing CSM as an example of this perceived collapse. This is my riposte to one such charge, published in 2015 in the establishment art journal Apollo.