My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.
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
Thoughts on the London riots. I think good.
From Objects of Austerity to Processes of Scarcity. Text of presentation available through link above.
This was a comment on the UK Government's White Paper on Higher Education from 2011. Corrects a few myths.
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.
A bit of a cheat, because it is really the second chapter of Architecture Depends
The best essay on the building and meaning of our house, with stories.
The keynote article for Architectural Review's 1500 issue. Draws heavily on the joint research with MOULD
More or less what it says on the tin — facts that were correct in early 2012.
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.
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.
An outcome of the Architecture after Architecture research project, this short book was written collectively by members of the MOULD collective, including me.
Architecture is Climate reimagines the very foundations of architecture in an age of crises. Rejecting outdated paradigms of endless linear growth, technocratic fixes, and the separation of humans from nature, this provocative and hopeful book argues that architecture must be fundamentally rethought—not as the design of objects, but as a practice entangled with climate, politics, history, and social justice.
Through eight key themes—knowledge, economy, land, resources, infrastructure, work, policy, and culture—Architecture is Climate explores how climate breakdown reshapes every aspect of architectural thinking and doing. Drawing on diverse voices, and grounded examples from around the world, it offers not just a critique of the status quo but a vision of other possible architectures—and climates—already in the making.
The book is accompanied by a website www.architectureisclimate.net
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
Texts for the catalogue to the British Pavilion at the 2006 Venice Architecture Biennale. On ideas of scale and stories in cities.