"Continue to contaminate your bed, and one day you will suffocate in your own waste" Duwamish chief Seattle to Pres… https://t.co/qTXguYJazz

Flexible Housing: 2007: Architectural Press

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.

Design after Design

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

Strong Margins

Short piece on Samuel Mockbee and the Rural Studio, trying to find the line between adulation and critique.

Glossing over the cracks

My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.

The Design of Risk

Lecture given at the Australian Institute of Architects Annual Conference 2015. One of my better 'performances'

The Broken Middle, the space of the London riots

Thoughts on the London riots. I think good.

Occupational Hazards: Architectural Review

A short think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to architecture.

Echo City: 2006: British Council/Cornerhouse

The catalogue of the British Pavilion at the 2006 Venice Architecture Biennale, with essays by me (the ones on scale are here), and an introduction - a love letter to Sheffield - by Go! Sheffield. Designed by the very brilliant Ian Anderson of The Designers Republic, so worth your £5 for that alone. The British Council website has a scammy scan of the catalogue.

Alternate Currents: Introduction (with Tatjana Schneider)

Lightish introduction to a whole issue of field (with articles worth reading); the start of the Spatial Agency Project.

Architecture after Architecture

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.

Glossing over the cracks

My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.

Urban Weaving

A critique of masterplanning. On to something here, but yet to be developed.

Frames of References

An invitation from the Italian journal STOA which I could not resist because the other invitee was Valerio Olgiati, whose take on architectural references is the polar opposite to mine. I swipe a bit, but maybe not hard enough, at his stance in this essay.

Three Myths and One Model

Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.

Email on the Brexit Referendum

On the day that the Brexit referendum was announced, I impulsively wrote to all my CSM colleagues. The email was then leaked and waves were created, not least in the Daily Mail who later included this as evidence that I was one of many traitors to the so-called 'will of the people.'

Architecture Criticism against the Climate Clock

The keynote article for Architectural Review's 1500 issue. Draws heavily on the joint research with MOULD

Architecture After Architecture Research Project

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.