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.
Second of two, with some hints as to how to achieve flexible housing, much more developed in the book.
My longest piece on architectural education. Finalist in EAAE competition. Maybe should have won, but the judges, Perez-Gomez and Palaasma, rose to my bait of inauthentic phenomenology and sulked.
My essay on architectural research, Three Myths and One Model, is being translated into French, so I thought it was time to write a new introduction to it, because the argument felt a bit tired, presented as it was ten years ago.
The keynote article for Architectural Review's 1500 issue. Draws heavily on the joint research with MOULD
Musings on Biennales and architectural exhibitions. Good opening! Light follow through.
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
My last (ever?) building as an architect, designed with Sarah Wigglesworth. Made of straw and stuff. Best known for being on Grand Designs, the video of which is online. Sarah’s wonderful book on the project views it from all sides. Winner of the RIBA Sustainability Award, a Civic Trust Award and some others. Lots and lots of reviews of the project, including the Observer, and, and, ... A 2021 film of it by Jim Stephenson is here, with a discussion afterwards. We live in it and are happy.
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.
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 think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to architecture.
Funny how ideas formed so long ago still come up. But rather gauche nonetheless.
The foreword to Arna Mathiesen's great book Scarcity In Excess, which investigates the effects of scarcity on the built environment in Iceland following the economic crisis of 2008. Other excerpts of the book are on Issuu
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.
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 very short piece for the Architects Journal on the possible effects of Brexit on creative education. See also my message to Central Saint Martins written the day the result was announced.