A long piece on Trump-Brexit-Architecture. I was nervous doing it because I thought everything had been said, but thought there was an urgency, so any contribution felt worthwhile.
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.
Early stuff on research and first ideas on contingency. Others like this more than I do - it won best paper at EAAE conference. Big in China (reprinted in The Architect (China), Vol 118 Dec 2005)
My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.
A short think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to architecture.
A further explanation of my 30% pledge, which seems to have raised debate (see comments) elsewhere on the very wonderful Parlour website.
An essay based on a presentation to the Society of Architectural Historians, tracing various historical episodes of austerity.
A research project funded AHRC and done with Tatjana Schneider at the University of Sheffield, looking at the history and contemporary possibilities of housing that is designed for future change and adaptation. The project resulted in a book and a number of articles, two of which are apparently among the most cited of ARQ articles. Winner 2007 RIBA President’s Award for Outstanding University-based Research. The link is to the almost final version of the book, which was beautifully designed by Ben Weaver.
First of two articles setting out the preliminary argument for the book, Flexible Housing. Apparently, one of ARQ's most cited ever article.
Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.
Chosen in open competition to curate the British Pavilion, I put together the best creative minds in Sheffield to present an echo of this wonderful city (the link takes you to my initial application, and I have to say the room data sheets are not bad). The team included: Ian Anderson, Tim Etchells, Hugo Glendinning, Encounters, Martyn Ware, and Jim Prevett. The show attempted to explain how a city is great beyond its buildings: it did not have much architecture in, which did not go down well with architects, especially those in London, who were doubly annoyed that a provincial academic was doing the show. But beyond the Clerkenwell goldfish bowl (with Ellis Woodman in particularly splenetic form, fortunately now behind a paywall), the exhibition was better received (i.e in Die Presse, Der Standard, Financial Times, The Architects Newspaper, The Times, The Yorkshire Post, and of course the Sheffield Telegraph)
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.
Reflections on 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale
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.
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
The keynote article for Architectural Review's 1500 issue. Draws heavily on the joint research with MOULD
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.