The keynote article for Architectural Review's 1500 issue. Draws heavily on the joint research with MOULD
A short think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to architecture.
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.'
A project with Helen Storey of the London College of Fashion and Tony Ryan of the University of Sheffield, arising out of their Free Radicals project. At heart a really good idea of diversifying the way that research is chosen, procured and delivered, allowing others beyond the academic circle to become involved in the processes and ideas of research. A report generously funded by the Wellcome Foundation sets out the stall. Now looking for ways of effecting it.
An extended argument of what participation might be and mean in architecture. Probably my most ‘scholarly’ piece. Widely cited and (so my co-design colleagues tell me) respected.
A research project funded by AHRC done with Tatjana Schneider and Nishat Awan at the University of Sheffield, gathering together numerous examples of how to use architectural intelligence beyond the production of objects, and in particular in terms of social and political agency. As part of the project we curated the 2009 RIBA Research Symposium (and Jonathan Charley’s video piece on the site is wonderful), produced a book, a website & various articles, and edited two special issues one of field: the other of ARQ. The project was awarded the 2011 RIBA President’s Award for Outstanding University-based Research, making me the only person to have received this internationally important award three times.
Edited with Sarah Wigglesworth. Now all this stuff appears, well, everyday but back then it was quite original. Buying it is a problem because the publishers discontinued it, but there are some sellers out there in the US. Essays and work by, among others, Sam Mockbee (of Rural Studio, his only published writing, of which we are proud to have persuaded him to do), Greil Marcus, Niall McLaughlin and Michael Marriott.
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.
Editorial for the third issue of the Italian Journal Ardeth, for which I was guest editor. The issue theme was ‘Money’
Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.
When I was Head of Central Saint Martins, almost every year there was an article or radio programme lamenting the demise of the art school, often citing CSM as an example of this perceived collapse. This is my riposte to one such charge, published in 2015 in the establishment art journal Apollo.
A short paper for the Journal of Architectural Education which specifically links issues of scarcity with notions of agency
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 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
Another lecture from the Architecture after Architecture project, given to the Australian ArchiTeam conference. Lovely introduction from Michael Smith but the rest of the audience seemed either outraged or nonplussed or CPD-points-collecting at my rather intemperate take on the future of architecture
The first time that Tatjana and I used the term 'spatial agency'. It felt like a breakthrough. The ideas a much expanded upon in the book 'Spatial Agency'