The Architecture of Good Intentions
Reflections on 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale
"Continue to contaminate your bed, and one day you will suffocate in your own waste" Duwamish chief Seattle to Pres… https://t.co/qTXguYJazz
Reflections on 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale
Edited with Peter Blundell Jones and Doina Petrescu. A collection of essays setting out the whys and hows of new approaches to participation. My chapter in the book appears to have ended up on this website. (under Biblioteca) Other chapters include work by Jon Broome, Giancarlo de Carlo, CHORA, and my two fellow editors.
Lightish introduction to a whole issue of field (with articles worth reading); the start of the Spatial Agency Project.
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 Rejecting outdated paradigms of endless linear growth, technocratic fixes, and the separation of humans from nature, this provocative and hopeful book argues that architecture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
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
Text of a short talk I gave at the RIBA during a seminar on the legacy of the Bauhaus.
More or less what it says on the tin — facts that were correct in early 2012.
The keynote article for Architectural Review's 1500 issue. Draws heavily on the joint research with MOULD
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 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.
Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.
My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.
Early piece, written when I had just got Lefebvre. Introduces themes that I play on for years to come.
In an idle moment I asked ChatGTP to "write a short statement in the style of the architecture critic Jeremy Till on the state of the architectural profession" The result is scarily good.
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.
A short think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to 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.