My contribution to Sarah Wigglesworth’s great book on our house, Stock Orchard Street. Outlines the tensions of being an architect-client.
Texts for the catalogue to the British Pavilion at the 2006 Venice Architecture Biennale. On ideas of scale and stories in cities.
First of two articles setting out the preliminary argument for the book, Flexible Housing. Apparently one of arq’s top downloads.
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.
My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.
My closing speech at the main conference for What's the Point of Art School, a series of events organised by Central Saint Martins. The video of the speech, which was well-recieved, is here. Other talks, including brilliance from Johnny Vegas, are here. There was a good write up of the day in the Guardian.
Reforming.
As part of the series ‘The Social Production of Architecture’. Didn't go too well because I asked the question: Is Design Activism bad design and bad activism? This started a debate.
With Tatjana Schneider. A comprehensive survey of Flexible Housing design. Winner 2007 RIBA President’s Award for Outstanding University based research, with judges saying: ‘An exemplary body of architecturally-relevant research’ offering comparative design plans, well-researched historical referencing, a new classification system and a practical manual/tool kit. An innovative and brave approach?? There is a long and useful, if quite critical, review by John Habraken (who is one of the book’s heroes). The book is beautifully designed by Ben Weaver, who also did Spatial Agency book and Architecture & Participation. The link is to an almost final version of the pdf of the book.
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.
Text of my talk as part of the celebration of PBJ's life held at the University of Sheffield, 16th November 2016
More or less what it says on the tin — facts that were correct in early 2012.
Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.
My essay on architectural research, Three Myths and One Model, is being translated into French, so I thought it was time to write a new introduction to it, because the argument felt a bit tired, presented as it was ten years ago.
Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.
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
For Occupied Times, the journal of the occupation movement. On austerity contra scarcity