My first foray into the intersection of politics and architecture. Spiky.
Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.
I was invited by Rory Sherlock and Francesca Romana DellAglio to do something around architectural education at the Architectural Association. We decided to do it as a meal around a big table, calling the event ‘Three Courses of Architectural Education. At the end of the first course, when I had set out how the first year of architectural education introduces a set of rituals and codes that initiate students into the culture of architecture, I asked each participant, who came from a wide range of schools, to write down a sentence or two that described a particularly weird happening in their first year. Most of the people present were recent graduates. The following are the unedited stories. Together they present a shocking picture of the state of architectural education.
My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.
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 introduction to the book Architecture, Participation and Society, edited by Leslie Forsyth and Paul Jenkins in 2009
Unpicking the differences between scarcity and austerity, the implications for the built environment. Good twitter feedback. Translated into French courtesy of the great journal Criticat. Pdf of translation here.
Lightish introduction to a whole issue of field (with articles worth reading); the start of the Spatial Agency Project.
Early piece, written when I had just got Lefebvre. Introduces themes that I play on for years to come.
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 a comment on the UK Government's White Paper on Higher Education from 2011. Corrects a few myths.
A short think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to architecture.
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.
The keynote article for Architectural Review's 1500 issue. Draws heavily on the joint research with MOULD
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.
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.
Text of a short talk I gave at the RIBA during a seminar on the legacy of the Bauhaus.