Rather a miserabilist piece, but gets in that fantastic Seneca quote: ‘Those were happy times before the days of architects.’
On Park Hill as an example of welfare architecture and its current demise. My first foray into the work of Zygmunt Bauman.
The keynote article for Architectural Review's 1500 issue. Draws heavily on the joint research with MOULD
Editorial for the third issue of the Italian Journal Ardeth, for which I was guest editor. The issue theme was ‘Money’
The catalogue of the British Pavilion at the 2006 Venice Architecture Biennale, with essays by me (the ones on scale are here), and an introduction - a love letter to Sheffield - by Go! Sheffield. Designed by the very brilliant Ian Anderson of The Designers Republic, so worth your £5 for that alone. The British Council website has a scammy scan of the catalogue.
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.
A short think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to architecture.
Scarcity Scares. Video here.
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 response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.
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.
On the day that the Brexit referendum was announced, I impulsively wrote to all my CSM colleagues. The email was then leaked and waves were created, not least in the Daily Mail who later included this as evidence that I was one of many traitors to the so-called 'will of the people.'
Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.
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.
The keynote article for Architectural Review's 1500 issue. Draws heavily on the joint research with MOULD
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