A short piece that I wrote in 2010 for the Architects Journal about end-of-year architecture shows. Some rather paranoid architectural tutors at Westminster (where I was then Dean) saw this as an attack on them personally, and so excommunicated me forthwith. In fact it was nothing to do with them but rather a concern about the general direction of architectural education as manifested through the exhibition.
My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.
This was a comment on the UK Government's White Paper on Higher Education from 2011. Corrects a few myths.
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 research project funded AHRC and done with Tatjana Schneider at the University of Sheffield, looking at the history and contemporary possibilities of housing that is designed for future change and adaptation. The project resulted in a book and a number of articles, two of which are apparently among the most cited of ARQ articles. Winner 2007 RIBA President’s Award for Outstanding University-based Research. The link is to the almost final version of the book, which was beautifully designed by Ben Weaver.
My final tribute to PBJ
Architecture Depends/Spatial Ethics. Video of the lecture is here.
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.
The keynote article for Architectural Review's 1500 issue. Draws heavily on the joint research with MOULD
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.
An essay based on a presentation to the Society of Architectural Historians, tracing various historical episodes of austerity.
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.
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 the dangers and vanities of form. Written when I was wading through my philosophy degree and it shows.
A lecture given as part of the The UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose’s lecture series “Rethinking Public Value and Public Purpose in 21st Century Capitalism”. It is the first run out of what happens when the ideas I have been developing in architecture for some years get rolled out to the wider field of design.