"Continue to contaminate your bed, and one day you will suffocate in your own waste" Duwamish chief Seattle to Pres… https://t.co/qTXguYJazz

Architecture After Architecture Research Project

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.

The Selfless Plan

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.

Upstream\Downstream

A short text written by our research collective MOULD as part of our pitch for the Rotterdam Architecture Biennale 2024. The text situates our research project Architecture is Climate as a parable.

Spatial Agency

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.

Constructed Scarcity

Very early thoughts from our Scarcity and Creativity project. Now looks rather crude.

Architecture Academy: Podcast

Not a lecture, but a podcast. The first episode from the new 'Architecture Academy' Podcast, set up and delivered by Marc Tuitt (who once was a student at Sheffield when I was Head of School). Under his wise questioning and sharp editing, I come across (though I say it myself) as sharp and focussed on some contemporary architectural issues (sexism, the profession, education and Brexit among them).

Glossing over the cracks

My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.

Architecture after 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.

Architecture and Participation: 2005: Routledge

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.

Three Myths and One Model

Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.

Response to Paul Finch on Extinction Rebellion

This is my very short response to Paul Finch's comments on Extinction Rebellion that he made in the Architects Journal on 14th May and 21st May 2019

Three Politics

This is the transcribed text of my speech closing the What's the Point of Art School conference at Central Saint Martins in May 2013. It reads rather crudely, but the points are made

Brexit and creative education

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.

Architecture Criticism against the Climate Clock

The keynote article for Architectural Review's 1500 issue. Draws heavily on the joint research with MOULD

Occupational Hazards: Architectural Review

A short think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to architecture.

Too Many Ideas

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)

Design after Design

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