My contribution to Sarah Wigglesworth’s great book on our house, Stock Orchard Street. Outlines the tensions of being an architect-client.
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.
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.
Lightish introduction to a whole issue of field (with articles worth reading); the start of the Spatial Agency Project.
Second of two, with some hints as to how to achieve flexible housing, much more developed in the book.
Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.
On Park Hill as an example of welfare architecture and its current demise. My first foray into the work of Zygmunt Bauman.
Very early thoughts from our Scarcity and Creativity project. Now looks rather crude.
On the dangers and vanities of form. Written when I was wading through my philosophy degree and it shows.
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.
My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.
Co-authored with Jon Goodbun, Michael Klein and Andreas Rumpfhuber. The main outcome of the Scarcity and Creativity in the Built Environment project. At the beginning of this project it became clear that there was no contemporary theory of scarcity that addressed the current conditions, so this book sets out to fill that gap, and then relate that theory to design. It is a short (15,000 words) book. Unfortunately the publishers are no longer running, so the link is to the full text as submitted to them in 2015.
A short think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to architecture.
Posted in honour of their 2014 RIBA Gold Medal Award. First published in Architectural Review in 2005 (and needs the drawings/pictures) A bit of a rave.
A short think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to architecture.
The keynote article for Architectural Review's 1500 issue. Draws heavily on the joint research with MOULD
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