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.
Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.
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.
A short introduction to the book Architecture, Participation and Society, edited by Leslie Forsyth and Paul Jenkins in 2009
A short text written by our research collective MOULD as part of our pitch for the Rotterdam Architecture Biennale 2024. The text situates our research project Architecture is Climate as a parable.
Early stuff on research and first ideas on contingency. Others like this more than I do - it won best paper at EAAE conference. Big in China (reprinted in The Architect (China), Vol 118 Dec 2005)
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
On Park Hill as an example of welfare architecture and its current demise. My first foray into the work of Zygmunt Bauman.
My contribution to Sarah Wigglesworth’s great book on our house, Stock Orchard Street. Outlines the tensions of being an architect-client.
This explains some the background as to why I have pledged only to accept invitations to panels, conferences and so on where there is at least 30% representation from women.
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.
My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.
This is a rare one where I write specifically about buildings, or in this case the subtlety of the plans of Proctor Matthews Architects. Online here, pdf 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.
The keynote article for Architectural Review's 1500 issue. Draws heavily on the joint research with MOULD
Reflections on 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale