My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.
Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.
Funny how ideas formed so long ago still come up. But rather gauche nonetheless.
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.
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.
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.
Text of a short talk I gave at the RIBA during a seminar on the legacy of the Bauhaus.
A lecture given as part of the The UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose’s lecture series “Rethinking Public Value and Public Purpose in 21st Century Capitalism”. It is the first run out of what happens when the ideas I have been developing in architecture for some years get rolled out to the wider field of design.
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
A short think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to architecture.
Thoughts on the London riots. I think good.
With Tatjana Schneider. A comprehensive survey of Flexible Housing design. Winner 2007 RIBA President’s Award for Outstanding University based research, with judges saying: ‘An exemplary body of architecturally-relevant research’ offering comparative design plans, well-researched historical referencing, a new classification system and a practical manual/tool kit. An innovative and brave approach?? There is a long and useful, if quite critical, review by John Habraken (who is one of the book’s heroes). The book is beautifully designed by Ben Weaver, who also did Spatial Agency book and Architecture & Participation. The link is to an almost final version of the pdf of the book.
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.
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.
Not my musing, but that of my brother Nick Till. Nails the issues around Margaret Thatcher's funeral rather beautifully in two paragraphs
A project with Helen Storey of the London College of Fashion and Tony Ryan of the University of Sheffield, arising out of their Free Radicals project. At heart a really good idea of diversifying the way that research is chosen, procured and delivered, allowing others beyond the academic circle to become involved in the processes and ideas of research. A report generously funded by the Wellcome Foundation sets out the stall. Now looking for ways of effecting it.