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
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.
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
Written in despair that it appears to have become an acceptable norm for architects to work in Saudi Arabia. I pick off the common justifications one by one. Published on the day that Saudi was awarded the World Cup in a piece of egregious sportwashing.
In order to get a balanced view, all reviews from the very nice to the very nasty are included here.
Really just a transcription of a lecture — ideas on housing, the everyday and occupation over form.
Originally commissioned by the RIBA, a piece on what might or might not constitute architectural research. Big in Spain.
My main statement of intent, which has been extensively reviewed (collected here) and featured on BBC Radio 3 and 4. The contents are available on the MIT Press website, as are pdfs of the preface and introduction. A version of Chapter 2 was published in field: and is available as a pdf. Winner 2009 RIBA President’s Award for Outstanding University based research. In 2025 I wrote an epilogue for the French translation.
A lecture on architectural education that I presented at The Agency Conference in Sydney in 2017, Yale Symposium on Rebuilding Architecture in 2018, and as part of the Bartlett International Lecture Series in 2018. It starts with the premise that architectural education is inherently conservative, and then spins out the argument from that uncomfortable start. The video link is from the Bartlett version. It did not go down universally well...
With Nishat Awan and Tatjana Schneider. Out of the Spatial Agency project, the book provides supporting texts to the website. A summary of the issues is in our Architecture Today article, and an early review by Luke Butcher is here, plus nice ones in archidose and arquilecturas. A short excerpt (on ecological examples of spatial agency) was published in field. Winner 2011 RIBA President’s Award for Outstanding University based research.
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.
Early piece, written when I had just got Lefebvre. Introduces themes that I play on for years to come.
My response as to why giving the official government website 2013 Design of the Year was not so cool.
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.
A short think piece on the 2011 Occupation movement and its relevance to architecture.
Article for The Conversation critiquing the reductive way that things are chosen for the Designs of the Year exhibition.
The keynote article for Architectural Review's 1500 issue. Draws heavily on the joint research with MOULD