"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.

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.

The Design of Scarcity; 2015; Strelka Press

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.

Three Myths and One Model

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

Stock Orchard Street

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.

Architecture and Contingency

A bit of a cheat, because it is really the second chapter of Architecture Depends

Flexible Housing, the means to the end (with Tatjana Schneider)

Second of two, with some hints as to how to achieve flexible housing, much more developed in the book.

New Introduction to 3 Myths and One Model

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.

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

The Background Type

Really just a transcription of a lecture — ideas on housing, the everyday and occupation over form.

Architecture after Architecture: May 2021

Another lecture from the Architecture after Architecture project, given to the Australian ArchiTeam conference. Lovely introduction from Michael Smith but the rest of the audience seemed either outraged or nonplussed or CPD-points-collecting at my rather intemperate take on the future of architecture

Occupational Hazards: Architectural Review

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

Glossing over the cracks

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

Architecture Criticism against the Climate Clock

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

Against Resilience

Another version of Architecture after Architecture. This time in a conference about resilience held in Miami, and I went in hard. I think one of the better lectures on the subject that I have given. Starts at 23.30.

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

An Incomplete Encyclopedia: Rem Koolhaas and S,M,L,XL

A review of Koolhaas' S,M,L, XL. May appear a bit grumpy, but in the end I think this is the architectural book of its generation. Reprinted in a collection of essays about Koolhaas.