Shows
A is for Architecture PodcastPier Vittorio Aureli: Processes of abstraction in modern architectureEpisode 105 of A is for Architecture is with Pier Vittorio Aureli, writer and educator, and founder and principal of Dogma, the much-acclaimed architecture and research group founded in 2002 by Pier Vittorio and Martino Tattara. We talk about Pier Vittorio's 2023 book, Architecture and Abstraction, published by MIT Press.
Architecture and Abstraction, so the gloss has it, ‘argues for a reconsideration of abstraction, its meanings, and its sources. Although architects have typically interpreted abstraction in formal terms—the purposeful reduction of the complexities of design to its essentials, [this book] presents abstraction in architecture not as an aesthetic tendency but as a m...2024-05-151h 00
A is for Architecture PodcastPaul Watt: Council housing and gentrificationIn Episode 104 of A is for Architecture, is a conversation with Paul Watt about his 2021 book, Estate Regeneration and Its Discontents: Public Housing, Place and Inequality in London, published by Bristol University Press in 2021.
We discuss the story of council-supplied housing, and its transformation through various governments – not just Maggie’s Conservatives – from a common asset and social good, into an instrument of urban regeneration policy that has at its heart a very different image of the city, predicated a new model of the desired and desirable urban citizen.
Estate Regeneration draws on Paul’s deep know...2024-05-081h 07
A is for Architecture PodcastAaron Betsky: Utopia, monster, city.In Episode 103 of A is for Architecture, Aaron Betsky discusses his recent book The Monster Leviathan: Anarchitecture, published by MIT Press in January this year. Until recently Professor in the School of Architecture and Design at Virginia Tech, and with previous roles as the President of the School of Architecture at Taliesin, director of the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Netherlands Architecture Institute, Curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the author of over 20 books. Aaron directed the Venice architecture biennale in 2008 and now operates as an independent scholar.
The Monster Leviathan describes an ar...2024-05-0153 min
A is for Architecture PodcastNimi Attanayake and Tim O'Callaghan: The principled architect.In Episode 102 of A is for Architecture, Nimi Attanayake and Tim O'Callaghan, founders and principals of nimtim architects, talk about their work, practice and the social role of the practice/s of architects and our architecture. Their body of work is very lovely, but it’s not just this, having a richness born of a dynamic ethicality. The question then is, is the fruit of good ethics good architecture?
In an Architecture After Grenfell, an article they wrote around 2022, and which appeared in BD, they suggest ‘What is required is a reset for the whole industry. If mora...2024-04-2451 min
A is for Architecture PodcastSophia Psarra: Parliament, power, politics and architecture.In Episode 101 of A is for Architecture, Sophia Psarra, Professor of Architecture and Spatial Design, the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, discusses some of her recent book, Parliament Buildings: The Architecture of Politics in Europe, which she co-edited with Uta Staiger and Claudia Sternberg, and published in 2023.
‘Parliament Buildings brings together architecture, history, art history, history of political thought, sociology, behavioural psychology, anthropology and political science [to offer] an eclectic exploration of the complex nexus between architecture and politics in Europe.’
Well that’s what they say but see what you think.
Sophia is all ac...2024-04-1759 min
A is for Architecture PodcastMatthew Fuller: Conflict, aesthetics and architecture.In this, the 100th episode of A is for Architecture and the thirty-something in Series 3, Matthew Fuller speaks about his and Eyal Weizman’s 2021 book, Investigative Aesthetics: Conflicts and Commons in the Politics of Truth, published with Verso, which ‘draws on theories of knowledge, ecology and technology [to evaluate] the methods of citizen counter-forensics, micro-history and art […] an inspiring introduction to a new field that brings together investigation and aesthetics to change how we understand and confront power today.’
Matthew is Professor of Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London, and has written many books and papers, which you...2024-04-1048 min
A is for Architecture PodcastAshton Hamm: Democratic practiceEpisode n/3 of A is for Architecture is a conversation with Ashton Hamm, founding principal of uxo architects, a cooperative practice based in California, USA. Building on some themes and ideas in Ashton’s recent book, Practice Practice (Oro Editions 2023), we discuss the what, why, where and how of cooperative, worker-owned practice. This is an American tale, of course, because each cooperative is a formal, legal structure and so depends on contextual legal protocols, but it is an illustrative and inspiring tale too, which indicates another possible way of being architect.
You can find UXO on Instagram here...2024-04-0334 min
A is for Architecture PodcastCatherine Ingraham: Architecture as theoryEpisode 30ish/3 of A is for Architecture is a conversation with Catherine Ingraham, writer and scholar, about Architecture’s Theory, part of MIT Press’ Writing Architecture Series. As the publisher’s spiel has it, ‘architecture as a thinking profession materializes theory in the form of built work that always carries symbolic loads’. But can there even be architecture without theory?
Catherine is a professor in the department of Graduate Architecture and Urban Design at the Pratt Institute, New York, where she was Chair of Graduate Architecture, between 1999-2005. Other significant written works by her include Architecture, Animal, Human: The As...2024-03-271h 06
A is for Architecture PodcastNeelkanth Chhaya: Architectures of Indian modernityEpisode 29/3 of A is for Architecture is a conversation with Professor Neelkanth Chhaya, architect and scholar, and former Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, CEPT, Ahmadabad, Gujarat. We discuss India, notions of modernism (and postmodernism) in postcolonial contexts, indigeneity and identity, and the meaning of the/ a ‘vernacular’ in a globalising culture, as well as time, language, poetry, food and parampara…
We also talk about Balkrishna Doshi, and you can hear/ watch Chhaya speak about him and his work as part of a fascinating panel discussion – "Suppose We Don't Talk About Architecture" - An Homage to Doshi – produced by...2024-03-2056 min
A is for Architecture PodcastLaurence Lord: Civic practice in Ireland and Holland.In Episode 28/3 of A is for Architecture, architect, curator and educator Laurence Lord speaks about his practice AP+E, which he founded with Jeffrey Bolhuis, and their civically-minded work in Ireland and Holland, his work at the 2023 Venice Biennial’s The Laboratory of the Future show, as Assistant to the Curator, Exhibition Design, and lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast.
Laurence can be found at the AP+E website, at QUB, on LinkedIn, X/ Twitter and Instagram.
Find it where the beautiful people listen to such things, and also those places they would really rather not.2024-03-1358 min
A is for Architecture PodcastFrank Jacobus and Brian M Kelly: Architecture and AI.In Episode 27, Series 3 of A is for Architecture, Frank Jacobus and Brian M Kelly discuss their recent book, Artificial Intelligent Architecture: New Paradigms in Architectural Practice and Production, published by ORO Editions in 2023.
The book discusses the ‘impact of artificial intelligence in the discipline of architecture [through the] mass adoption of highly accessible machine learning tools [which has] allowed designers to test their limits and assess their role as an author in the design of the built environment.’ The book features essays from eighteen architects and designers that theorize and test the possibilities of AI, and its mean...2024-03-0655 min
A is for Architecture PodcastLoretta Lees and Elanor Warwick: Defensible spaceIn Episode 26/ 3 of A is for Architecture, Loretta Lees and Elanor Warwick speak about their book, Defensible Space on the Move: Mobilisation in English Housing Policy and Practice, published with Wiley in 2022. We discuss a few of its themes, including the emergence of the concept in America with Oscar Newman and others, its transference to Britain and its articulation and deployment by geographers, architects and policymakers, not least Alice Coleman, in the later twentieth century.
The book tells ‘the history of defensible space from the 1970s work of Oscar Newman on New York City public housing projects to...2024-02-281h 07
A is for Architecture PodcastKen Worpole: Designing social careSeries 3, Episode 25 of A is for Architecture’s is a conversation with social and architectural historian, Ken Worpole, discussing his life and work, and focusing on the new edition of his book Modern Hospice Design: The Architecture of Palliative and Social Care, published by Routledge this year. As the gloss puts it, ‘At its core [the book is] a public discussion of a philosophy of design for providing care for the elderly and the vulnerable, taking the importance of architectural aesthetics, the use of quality materials, the porousness of design to the wider world, and the integration of indoor and ou...2024-02-2150 min
A is for Architecture PodcastMark Jarzombek: Design, discipline, labour, craft.Episode 23/3 of A is for Architecture is a conversation with Mark Jarzombek about his recent book, Architecture Constructed: Notes on a Discipline, published by Bloomsbury in 2023. The book presents ‘the long-suppressed conflict between […] between those who design, and those who build. [Jarzombek] reveals architecture to be a troubled, interconnected realm, incomplete and unstable, where labor, craft, and occupation are the 'invisible' complements to the work of the architect [and] pushes the boundaries on how we define the professional discipline of architecture’.
Mark Jarzombek is Professor of the History and Theory of Architecture, MIT. He Instagrams and LinkedIns.
A...2024-02-1456 min
A is for Architecture PodcastSwati Chattopadhyay: Making empire everyday.In Episode 22 of Series 3 of A is for Architecture, architectural historian, Swati Chattopadhyay discusses her 2023 book, Small Spaces: Recasting the Architecture of Empire, published by Bloomsbury. ‘With the focus of history so often on the large scale - global trade networks, vast regions, and architectures of power and domination - Small Spaces shows instead how we need to rethink this aura of magnitude so that our reading is not beholden such imperialist optics [and] is a must-read for anyone wishing to decolonize disciplinary practices in the field of architectural, urban, and colonial history.’
Swati is Professor in the...2024-02-071h 00
A is for Architecture PodcastJim Stephenson (with Sofia Smith): Photography, architecture and everyday life.In Episode 21/3 of A is for Architecture, filmmaker and architectural photographer Jim Stephenson discusses his work, his method and his inspirations. Jim and Sofia Smith are currently exhibiting their work ‘The Architect has Left the Building’ at The Farrell Centre, Newcastle – an immersive film installation that explores ‘how people use buildings and spaces once the architect‘s work has finished’.
Jim can be found on Instagram as clickclickjim. His personal website is here.
Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts and Amazon Music.
Thanks for listening.
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Music credits: Bruno Gillick2024-01-3149 min
A is for Architecture PodcastKatie Lloyd Thomas: Architects, builders, specificationsEpisode 20, Series 3 of A is for Architecture, is a discussion with Katie Lloyd Thomas, Professor of Architectural History and Theory at Newcastle University, about her 2021 book, Building Materials: Material Theory and the Architectural Specification, published by Bloomsbury. The book ‘offers a radical rethink of how materials, as they are constituted in architectural practice, are themselves constructed and […] uncovers [in the construction specification] a vast and neglected resource of architectural writing’.
Katie can be found professionally here, and socially here. The Production Studies 2024 conference can be found here, and is still open for attendees.
Available on Spotify...2024-01-241h 11
A is for Architecture PodcastJohn Pawson: Minimalist architecture.In Episode 19/3 of A is for Architecture, John Pawson speaks about his design education, work, ethos and practice. John is recognised as the preeminent minimalist architect of the age, with work including Calvin Klein shops, St John at Hackney Church (2020), the Abbey of Our Lady of Nový Dvůr, Czech Republic (2004) the Moritzkirche, Augsburg (2013) and the Sackler Crossing at Kew (2006). Last year, a new book was published on John’s work – John Pawson: Making Life Simpler, published by Phaidon, and written by Deyan Sudjic. His 1996 book, Minimum, was something like a phenomenon.
You can find John on Instagra...2024-01-171h 07
A is for Architecture PodcastDana Cuff: Architecture and spatial justice.In Season 3, Episode 18 of A is for Architecture Dana Cuff speaks about her recent book, Architectures of Spatial Justice, published by MIT Press last year. Dana is Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, and founding director of cityLAB, both at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Architectures of Spatial Justice ‘examines ethically driven practices that break with professional conventions to correct long-standing inequities in the built environment, uncovering architecture's limits—and its potential.’ The book builds on Dana’s founding of cityLAB in 2006, ‘a research and design center that initiates experimental projects to explore metropolitan possibilities’ and which ‘leverages des...2024-01-1150 min
A is for Architecture PodcastRob Fiehn: London’s futuresEpisode 17/3 of A is for Architecture, is a conversation with Rob Fiehn, writer, communications consultant, Director of the London Society and Chair of the Museum of Architecture, about the London Society’s 2023 London of the Future book, a collection of essays by experts from various disciplines – ‘engineering, urbanism, architecture, manufacturing, futurology, journalism and more’ – speculating on ‘how the metropolis might be governed, organized and designed in the years to come.’
London of the Future is a plush publication, as you would expect, full of smart ideas and lovely images. It follows 102 years on from the London Society’s original publication of the sam...2024-01-0348 min
A is for Architecture PodcastPetra Marko: Placemaking for the city.In Episode 16/3 of A is for Architecture, I spoke with the architect Petra Marko, director of Marko & Placemakers, creative director of visual communication company Milk and now Director of the Metropolitan Institute of Bratislava, about her work, placemaking as an urban development approach and the role of temporary or meanwhile interventions as mechanisms for producing good, sustainable urban spaces with clear identity. All this is beautifully described in her recent publication - and the stimulus for our conversation - Meanwhile City: How temporary interventions create welcoming places with a strong identity, published by Milk in 2022.
Petra can be found can be found...2023-12-271h 02
A is for Architecture PodcastAnnette Fierro: Utopia, machines, Archigram and the High Tech.In Episode 15, Season 3 of A is for Architecture’s, Annette Fierro speaks about her book, Architectures of the Technopolis: Archigram and the British High Tech, published by Lund Humphries in November.
High Tech has been the dominant style of British architecture for many decades, delivered in vast visions and buildings, in the work of acclaimed and revered designers like Richard Rodgers and Renzo Piano, Norman Foster, Nicholas Grimshaw and Terry Farrell, often in partnership with visionary engineers, particularly Ove Arup and Buro Happold. Growing off the back of a longstanding discourse, with roots in the utopic visions of early modernity, High Tech t...2023-12-2047 min
A is for Architecture PodcastRowan Moore: The social house.In Episode 14/3 of A is for Architecture’s, Rowan Moore speaks about his recent book, Property: The Myth the Built the World, published by Faber & Faber this year.
Rowan is the architecture critic at the Observer, and has previously published Why We Build (Picador/ Pan Macmillan, 2012), Anatomy of a Building (Little, Brown, 2014) and Slow Burn City: London in the Twenty-First Century (Picador/ Pan Macmillan, 2016).
According to the publisher’s gloss, Property ‘asks how we have come to view our homes as investments – and […] offers hope for how things could be better, with reform that might enable the social wealt...2023-12-1359 min
A is for Architecture PodcastJuhani Pallasmaa: Architecture, time and the five senses.In the 13th episode of A is for Architecture’s third series, I spoke with the remarkable architect and writer, Juhani Pallasmaa, former professor of architecture and dean at the Helsinki University of Technology, now incorporated as Aalto University.
Pallasmaa’s work has been of huge importance to architects now active in the transformation of our towns and cities, with his description of a tactile, material and immanent embodiment visible in the work of almost all good, urban work now being built. His written work particularly stands, in a way, in counterpoint to the superficial and the visual, that occularcentric tende...2023-12-0654 min
A is for Architecture PodcastKeller Easterling: Object/ People/ System/ DesignIn Series 3’s 12th episode of A is for Architecture I spoke with architect, writer, and thinker Keller Easterling, Enid Storm Dwyer Professor and Director of the MED Program at Yale University, about her 2021 book, Medium Design: Knowing How to Work on the World, published by Verso.
To quote James Graham in the Journal of Architectural Education, ‘Medium Design emerged into a world marked by […] a growing desire for change within the architectural profession. […] Is Medium Design the closing bracket of the 2010s in architectural theory, or a hinge between the “before” and the “after”’. It’s a good question, which Easterling’s bo...2023-11-2943 min
A is for Architecture PodcastChris Dyson & Dominic Bradbury: Making history modern.In episode 11, series 3 of A is for Architecture I spoke with architect Chris Dyson, principal of Chris Dyson Architects, and Dominic Bradbury, about his (their) new book, Chris Dyson Architects: Tradition and Modernity, published by Lund Humphries this year.
Chris Dyson Architects’ practice has a reputation for sensitive modern work in historic contexts, which the book documents, describing in text and lovely images what the blurb says is the practice’s works’ ‘overriding sense of different elements – be they material, temporal or cultural – coming together into coherent wholes [making] architecture that feels old and new at the same time.’
Chris Dyson Architec...2023-11-221h 00
A is for Architecture PodcastKatrin Bohn and André Viljoen: Urban agriculture as designIn A is for Architecture’s Episode 10/3 Katrin Bohn and André Viljoen – architects, academics and activists – speak about their work on urban agriculture, specifically the idea’s they developed in CPULs Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes: Designing Urban Agriculture for Sustainable Cities, published by Elsiever in 2005, developed and represented in Second Nature Urban Agriculture: Designing Productive Cities, published by Routledge in 2014, and which won the 2015 RIBA President's Award for Outstanding University-located Research.
CPULs are part of Bohn and Viljoen’s proposal for ‘a resilient urban entity […] that enables sustainable urban food systems for the pleasure of its individual citizens and th...2023-11-151h 04
A is for Architecture PodcastLeonard Ma, Helen Runting and Tahl Kaminer: Gentrification, suburbia, cities and finance.A is for Architecture’s Episode 8, Series 3, is a conversation with a trio of great scholars, Tahl Kaminer, Leonard Ma and Helen Runting, about their recent book, Urbanizing Suburbia: Hyper-Gentrification, the Financialization of Housing and the Remaking of the Outer European City, published by Jovis in July this year.
Addressing the ongoing exodus from the inner city apparent across the world and the appropriation of the suburbs by new communities, the book examines ‘the relationship between three current processes underway in global cities: the hyper-gentrification of inner cities, the financialization of housing, and the structural changes occurring in t...2023-11-021h 10
A is for Architecture PodcastPaul Dobraszczyk: Animals and architectureEpisode 7/ 3 of A is for Architecture, is a conversation with writer, photographer and teacher Paul Dobraszczyk, about his book, Animal Architecture: Beasts, Buildings and Us, published by Reaktion Books in March this year.
Animal Architecture ‘considers many different animals, opening up new ways of thinking about architecture and the more-than-human [and] asks what we might require in order to design with animals and become more attuned to the other lifeforms that already use our structures’. That’s what the blurb says, anyway.
You can find Paul on X here, Instagram here and at his website here...2023-10-2551 min
A is for Architecture PodcastCharlotte Skene Catling: From geoarcheology to architecture.In episode 6/ 3 of A is for Architecture, architect, writer, teacher and researcher, Charlotte Skene Catling talks about her practice Skene Cailtling de la Peña, which she founded in 2003 with Jaime de la Peña. The practice’s work has been widely published and to considerable critical acclaim, blending as it does context, occupation/ use, earth, soil, sedimentation and historic records, in a process they term geoarchaeology. The term has academic connotations, and how this is actualized in Skene Catling de la Peña’s practice is worth hearing told. It particularly fascinating where it touches on Aino and Alvar Aalto’s...2023-10-181h 07
A is for Architecture PodcastLiz Postlethwaite: Permaculture and design.In episode 5/ 3 of A is for Architecture, Liz Postlethwaite talks about her practice as a participatory artist, permaculture designer and Director of Small Things Creative Projects, a social enterprise with a focus on regenerative culture through designing and writing scaled interventions in public.
Permaculture is mimetic, promoting the management of land and habitats by paralleling and replicating natural ecologies. (It’s also more than this, as Liz explains.) It has direct relevance for architecture and practice, reframing the relationship of designers and sites/ context towards greener, more holistic, ethical and slower ways. It also offers a number of simple motifs fo...2023-10-1148 min
A is for Architecture PodcastStuart Vokes and Aaron Peters: Architecture, suburbia and Brisbane.In episode 4/ 3 of A is for Architecture, Stuart Vokes and Aaron Peters speak about their practice, Vokes & Peters, and their elegant domestic and civic buildings in the heart and hinterlands of Brisbane. Our discussion sprung from their recent book, Migrations from Memory, a collection of essays by Stuart Vokes and Aaron Peters reflecting upon twenty years of practice, published by Canalside Press in 2023.
Vokes & Peters’ domestic work is particularly wonderful, and rightly acclaimed, embodying a civility and civicness that is distinct and significant. There is much online about it. A quote from Stuart from the book’s opening illustrates something of t...2023-10-041h 05
A is for Architecture PodcastMónica Montserrat Degen and Gillian Rose: The New Urban Aesthetic.In A is for Architecture’s third episode of the series, Monica Degen and Gillian Rose speak about their 2022 book, The New Urban Aesthetic: Digital Experiences of Urban Change. The book ‘explores how cities worldwide are being transformed and reconfigured by the twin forces of digital technologies and 'urban branding' [generating] ‘sensory bodily experiences [which] this book terms the new urban aesthetic.’ Documenting this shift through global examples, the book helps us understand the how and why of the experience of contemporary urban space.
Gillian is Professor of Human Geography at the University of Oxford, and Monica is Professor in Urban Cul...2023-09-2751 min
A is for Architecture PodcastSimon Henley: Beneficial building.In Episode 2, Season (or series) 3 of A is for Architecture, Simon Henley talks about his work as a designer, researcher, maker and teacher, and the work of Henley Halebrown, the practice he founded in 1995. Initially we had agreed to explore a notion Simon suggested of ‘beneficial building’. We never go there precisely, but perhaps in spirit.
Henley Halebrown are increasingly significant players in the production of new urban housing, particularly in London, where their work has grown in stature and reputation. This year, their Taylor & Chatto Courts and Wilmott Court, Frampton Park Estate has been shortlisted for the RIBA Neave Brow...2023-09-2156 min
A is for Architecture PodcastDenise Scott Brown: Becoming Denise.In the first episode of A is for Architecture’s third series, the effervescent Denise Scott Brown talks about her journey to and through architecture, as a designer, writer, planner, urbanist, theorist and teacher. It is a wonderful, remarkable story, told with great eloquence and elegance, and one which deserves continued attention.
Denise’s work with her practice Venturi Scott Brown has inspired a great many people, with buildings including Franklin Court, Philadelphia (1976), the Children's Museum, Houston, Texas (1992), the Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery, London (1991), the Seattle Art Museum (1991) and the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego (1996). Her and...2023-09-131h 25
A is for Architecture PodcastAlan Dickson: Authentic vernaculars in rural Scotland.Episode 37/2 of A is for Architecture is a conversation with Alan Dickson, co-founder and director of Rural Design, an acclaimed and innovative architecture practice based on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. Rural Design’s work is characterised by a reappropriation of vernacular forms and construction traditions, which is both contemporary and contextually embedded.
Have a listen and a look around.
Rural Design’s website is a good one, and they are on Twitter and Instagram. You can see their work on Dezeen, ArchDaily, in the AJ, and a lot of other places too. The Rural House...2023-06-2256 min
A is for Architecture PodcastEleanor Jolliffe & Paul Crosby: Making Architects.In Episode 36, Season 2 of A is for Architecture, Eleanor Jolliffe and Paul Crosby speak about their book, Architect: The Evolving Story of a Profession, published by RIBA Publishing in March this year. Eleanor is an architect with Allies and Morrison and writes regularly for the architectural press, including a
column for Building Design. Paul, also an architect, now leads the professional practice/ Part 3 course at the Architectural Association.
Thematically a chronology of the emergence of a very particular discipline, Architect looks at ‘the key questions of where the architectural profession originated in the Western tradition, why it is...2023-06-1552 min
A is for Architecture PodcastCharles Holland: Co-Living in the Countryside.Episode 35/2 of A is for Architecture features Charles Holland, principal of Charles Holland Architects, and Professor of Architecture at the University of the Creative Arts, Canterbury. We speak about Charles’ work and research, focusing on his 2022 Davidson Prize-winning proposal, Co-Living in the Countryside, ‘a proposal for new rural housing […] developed as a collaboration with artist Verity-Jane Keefe, urban designer Joseph Zeal-Henry and the Quality of Life
Foundation.
‘Co-living in the Countryside responds to the brief for co-living and proposes a new rural housing typology [allowing for] shared spaces, flexible and adaptable house types and an approach based on mutual...2023-06-0858 min
A is for Architecture PodcastAndrew Beharrell & Rory Olcayto: New urban housing.In Episode 34/2 of A is for Architecture, Andrew Beharrell and Rory Olcayto talk about their book, The Deck Access Housing Design Guide: A Return to Streets in the Sky, published by Routledge this year. Andrew is a Senior Advisor for the London-based architects, Pollard Thomas Edwards, where he was formerly director and senior partner. Rory is writer and critic at PTE, and formerly editor of the Architects’ Journal and chief executive of Open City.
‘Despite a chequered history that saw it linked with urban decay and social malaise in the 1970s and 80s, deck access housing […] is fast beco...2023-06-011h 06
A is for Architecture PodcastBen Derbyshire: Politics, ethics and practice.Episode 33/2 of A is for Architecture’s features Ben Derbyshire, Chair of HTA Design LLP and Immediate Past President of RIBA. We talk about Home Truths,
Ben’s 2022 book, published with Hatch Editions.
The book, so it states, is ‘a manifesto for professional practice in an era of multiple crises – in social, economic and racial disparity, in housing supply and
affordability, in climate change, in our emptying high streets and homelessness in our town centres. […] setting out the essential ideas and likely future developments that aspiring planners and designers of homes and places need to know about and bear in...2023-05-2551 min
A is for Architecture PodcastSusannah Hagan: Architecture and the Anthropocene.In Episode 32 of A is for Architecture’s second season, Susannah Hagan talks about her book Revolution? Architecture and the Anthropocene, published by Lund Humphries in 2022. Susannah is an emeritus professor of architecture at the University of Westminster, founder of R_E_D (Research into Environment + Design) at the Royal College of Art, and has been a leading light in the establishment of environmental design as a serious, measured discipline within architecture. Revolution? is the fourth book in a series Susannah has written, documenting the relationship of architecture to the natural environment, including Taking Shape: A New Contract Between Arc...2023-05-1858 min
A is for Architecture PodcastAlbena Yaneva: Covid, bodies, cities and urban things.In Episode 30, Season 2 of A is for Architecture, Professor Albena Yaneva discusses her very recent book, Architecture After Covid, published by Bloomsbury this year. Albena is Professor of Architectural Theory at the Manchester School of Architecture and Director of the Manchester Architecture Research Group at the Manchester Urban Institute, University of Manchester.
‘Architecture After COVID is the first book to explore the pandemic's transformative impacts upon the architectural profession. It raises new questions about the intertwined natures of architectural production, science, society, and spatial practice [exploring] how the pandemic modified the spatial conventions of everyday life in the...2023-05-041h 00
A is for Architecture PodcastGary Boyd: Coal, architecture and modernity.In Episode 29/2 of A is for Architecture, Professor Gary Boyd speaks on his book, Architecture and the Face of Coal: Mining and Modern Britain, published by Lund Humphries in December 2022. Gary is Professor of Architecture in the School of Natural and Built Environment, Queen’s University Belfast.
Mining and the Face of Coal is one output of a Major Research Fellowship Gary got from the Leverhulme Trust in 2018, and it describes a powerful story of heavy industry and the life of coal and coal miners in the development of modern Britain, including the emancipation of working class co...2023-04-271h 00
A is for Architecture PodcastBryan Cantley: Architecture between the real and the virtual.In Episode 27/ 2 of A is for Architecture Bryan Cantley speaks about his very extraordinary body of work, beautifully documented in Speculative Coolness: Architecture, Media, the Real, and the Virtual, published by Routledge earlier this month. Bryan is Professor of 3-Dimensional Design at the Department of Visual Arts at California State University, Fullerton, and founder/ director of Form:uLA, an experimental architecture, design, and graphic communication studio.
As the blurb has it, ‘Cantley’s work offers a unique and critical insight into the emergence of a liminal territory that exists between the real and the virtual that mainstream architecture has yet to e...2023-04-1352 min
A is for Architecture PodcastReinier de Graaf: Thinking architecture.Episode 26 of A is for Architecture’s second season is a conversation with architect, urbbanist and writer Reinier de Graaf, partner at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), about his recent book, architect, verb: The New Language of Building, published by Verso in February this year.
In ten chapters, architect, verb covers much ground, from sustainability and beauty, to starchitecture and gentrification, and aims ‘to debunk myths projected onto architecture by the outside world’ […] Once a profession known for its manifestos, architecture finds itself increasingly forced to adopt ever-more extreme postures of virtue, held accountable by the world of...2023-04-0651 min
A is for Architecture PodcastNeal Shasore & Jessica Kelly: Postwar architecture and democracy.In Episode 25/2 of A is for Architecture I spoke with Head of School and Chief Executive of the London School of Architecture, Neal Shasore and Jessica Kelly, Reader in Architectural & Design History at University of the Creative Arts (UCA) and (also) teacher at London Metropolitan University, about their edited anthology, Reconstruction: Architecture, Society and the Aftermath of the First World War, published by Bloomsbury in February this year.
Our conversation addresses some of the overarching themes in the book, which features ‘[s]ixteen essays written by leading and emerging scholars [about] a period of reconstruction, fraught with th...2023-03-301h 08
A is for Architecture PodcastPatrick Lynch: Architecture’s ground.A is for Architecture’s Episode 24, Season 2, is a conversation with Patrick Lynch, founder and director of Lynch Architects, writer, scholar and guv’nor (with Claudia Lynch) of Canalside Press. We spoke about a few of Patrick’s written works, and some of Lynch Architect’s recent built projects too, focusing the
discussion around Patrick’s discussions of the ground of architecture.
Being-With/A Tacit Alliance: Architecture, Publishing, and the Poetic Reciprocity of Civic Culture in The Hybrid Practitioner Building, Teaching, Researching Architecture (2022), eds. C. Voet, E. Schreurs and H. Thomas, published by Leuven University Press.
Situated Praxis, Prudence, an...2023-03-231h 17
A is for Architecture PodcastTeddy Cruz & Fonna Forman: Architecture, justice, the spatial and the social.In episode 23, Season 2 of A is for Architecture, I spoke with UC San Diego professors, Fonna Forman and Teddy Cruz about their two recent books, Spatializing Justice: Building Blocks and Socializing Architecture: Top-Down / Bottom-Up, published by MIT Press in August 2022 and March 2023 respectively. Fonna and Teddy run Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman, a ‘a research-based political and architectural practice in San Diego, who investigate ‘issues of informal urbanization, civic infrastructure and public culture […] Blurring conventional boundaries between theory and practice, and merging the fields of architecture and urbanism, political theory and urban policy, visual arts and public culture’ [leading] urban re...2023-03-1653 min
A is for Architecture PodcastKim Dovey: Informal settlements and emergent urbanism.Season Two’s twenty-second episode features Kim Dovey, Professor and Chair of Architecture and Urban Design, Melbourne School of Design, University of Melbourne, speaking about his very wonderful body of work on informality, informal urbanism, place and placemaking. We discuss his forthcoming Atlas of Informal Settlement: Understanding Self-Organized Urban Design (Bloomsbury 2023, with, Matthijs van Oostrum, Tanzil Shafique, Ishita Chatterjee and Elek Pafka), Mapping Urbanities: Morphologies, Flows, Possibilities (Routledge 2018), and Becoming Places: Urbanism / Architecture / Identity / Power (Routledge 2010), and just one of his marvellous papers, Towards a morphogenesis of informal settlements (2020, Habitat International, with van Oostrum, Shafique, Chatterjee and Pafka).
...2023-03-081h 06
A is for Architecture PodcastMaurice Mitchell and Bo Tang: Detective, narrator, craftsman, architect.In Episode 21, Season 2 of A is for Architecture I spoke with Maurice Mitchell and Bo Tang, respectively Professor and Reader of/ in Architecture, within the School of Art, Architecture and Design at London Metropolitan University, and together directors of Architecture of Rapid Change and Scarce Resources [A R C S R], an ‘an emergent, studio based, teaching and research area within the practice and academic discipline of architecture’. I got to hear about their 2017 book, Loose Fit City: The Contribution of Bottom-Up Architecture to Urban Design and Planning, published by Routledge, which is ‘about the ways in which city reside...2023-03-0251 min
A is for Architecture PodcastFlora Samuel: Housing, health and eudaimonia.In Episode 20, Season 2 of A is for Architecture’s I spoke with Flora Samuel, Professor of Architecture at the University of Cambridge, holding the professorial chair and until recently, professor at and founding member of Reading School of Architecture, University of Reading about Housing for Hope and Wellbeing, published by Routledge this year which, Flora said, is ‘the best one I ever wrote, I think, & certainly the cheapest.’. Flora was elected the first RIBA Vice President for Research in 2018 and has been instrumental in the development of the Urban Room movement in Britain, through her CCQOL research project on commun...2023-02-2156 min
A is for Architecture PodcastAlex Ely: Resilience, networks and architectural practice.Episode Nineteen of A is for Architecture’s second season is a conversation with Mae’s founding director, Alex Ely, talking about his practice’s recent book, Towards a Resilient Architecture, published by Quart in 2022. Mae’s work has an increasing focus on sustainability integrated into the whole life of the scheme. As Alex put it when we spoke, ‘I suppose reflecting on 21 years of practice, I suddenly sort of recognise that, in every project we've done, there's been an element of inquiry or hunting for alternative ways of doing things that might lend themselves to more sustainable solutions. That's not...2023-02-1358 min
A is for Architecture PodcastEd Parham: Space Syntax, cities and digital futures.In episode 18, season 2 of A is for Architecture, I met (on Zoom…) with Ed Parham, Director of Design & innovation at Space Syntax, to talk about its origins, objectives, methods and motivations. Space Syntax, the brainchild of Bill Hiller, formed as the Space Syntax Laboratory at The Bartlett, University College London, and now led by Tim Stonor, is ubiquitous in architectural thinking, almost a shorthand for any form of data-led complex spatial analysis. I wanted to understand it better, and Ed, as an architect, seemed like the ideal person to unpack it for a naïf like me.
Spa...2023-02-061h 08
A is for Architecture PodcastSally Stone: Interiority, interior design and change.In this the seventeenth episode of A is for Architecture’s second series, I speak with Sally Stone, Reader and Programme Leader for the MA Architecture and Adaptive Reuse programme and Director of the Continuity in Architecture Atelier at the Manchester School of Architecture. Among other things, Sally writes a lot, and we spoke about one recent book of hers, Inside Information: The Defining Concepts of Interior Design, co-written with Ed Hollis (Edinburgh College of Art) and published by RIBA Books in 2022.
Inside Information deals with interiors, which is an under-interrogated part of Capital-A Architecture, focused as it...2023-01-2654 min
A is for Architecture PodcastGevork Hartoonian: Architecture, spectacle and the image.In Episode 16 of Season 2 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Gevork Hartoonian, Professor of the History and Theory of Architecture at the University of Canberra, Australia, about his 2012 book, Architecture and Spectacle: A Critique, published by Routledge. The issue of the architectural spectacle has perhaps been the dominant idea in urban and architectural thinking for the last two or three decades, most explicitly seen in Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum at Bilbao, a model of design that has been replicated globally since that building’s opening, but permeating design education and practice almost everywhere, in the near univ...2023-01-191h 06
A is for Architecture PodcastJonathan Hale: Phenomenology, Merleau-Ponty and architecture.In Season 2, Episode 15 A is for Architecture, I speak with architect and writer, Jonathan Hale, Professor of Architectural Theory at the University of Nottingham, about his 2017 book, Merleau-Ponty for Architects, published by Routledge as part of their Thinkers for Architects series. Merleau-Ponty was a leading phenomenologist, whose work ‘has influenced the design work of architects as diverse as Steven Holl and Peter Zumthor, as well as […] architectural theory, notably […] Dalibor Vesely at Cambridge, Kenneth Frampton, David Leatherbarrow and Alberto Pérez-Gómez in North America and Juhani Pallasmaa in Finland. Merleau-Ponty suggested that the value of people’s experience of the wor...2023-01-111h 06
A is for Architecture PodcastHenry Sanoff: Participation, design and play.In Episode 14 of the second season of A is for Architecture, I speak with architect and scholar (and personal hero), Henry Sanoff, professor emeritus at the North Carolina State University. Henry has a remarkable story to tell, starting in the office of Frank Lloyd Wright (on the Guggenheim!) and then on to Edward Durrell Stone, before heading off to Jamaica to test his mettle as an architect and to develop a programmatic, ethnographic approach to design. This led to a long career in community participation design, and we discuss three texts he produced through this: Community Participation Methods in...2023-01-041h 14
A is for Architecture PodcastPiers Taylor: Making architecture, nature and communityIn Episode 13 of Season 2 of A is for Architecture, I speak with architect, writer, teacher and television presenter, Piers Taylor about his journey to architecture, and the development of his practice, Invisible Studio. We speak about the way he works, his approach to design-as-making and making-as-design, the problems of professionalism, and touch on his 2020 doctoral thesis, Developing a Framework for Describing, Planning and Evaluating Empowerment in Architectural Making Projects, which he undertook at the University of Reading, supervised by Flora Samuel.
Piers has produced a huge amount - written, spoken and designed - and there’s much on...2022-12-201h 05
A is for Architecture PodcastRuth Lang: Creative reuse and sustainabilityIn the 12th episode of the 2nd season of A is for Architecture, I speak with architect, curator, scholar and teacher, Dr Ruth Lang, about her recent book, Building for Change: The Architecture of Creative Reuse, published by gestalten in August this year. Ruth wears many hats, working for Mae as a writer, editor and researcher, at the Design Museum as Research Lead for the Future Observatory, as well as being lead on the Critical Practice module at the LSA and lead on the Radical Practice MA module at the RCA.
Building for Change asks: ‘How can we...2022-12-1359 min
A is for Architecture PodcastJos Boys: Activism, architecture and disordinary bodies.In episode 11 of A is for Architecture’s second season, I speak with architect, scholar, teacher and activist, Dr. Jos Boys, about her long term project, The DisOrdinary Architecture Project. Jos was a founding member of the ground-breaking feminist architecture practice, Matrix, a ‘radical, […] women-led platform […] integrating new interdisciplinary and intersectional ways of working across theory and practice’, and whose work was recently featured in a retrospective exhibition – How We Live Now: Reimagining Spaces with Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative - at the Barbican. Jos has also written widely on her approach to space, design and research, including Doing Disability Differently...2022-12-061h 00
A is for Architecture PodcastBeatriz Colomina & Evangelos Kotsioris: Radical pedagogiesIn episode ten of season two of A is for Architecture, I speak with Beatriz Colomina and Evangelos Kotsioris, about their book Radical Pedagogies, co-edited with Ignacio G. Galán and Anna-Maria Meister and published by MIT Press in 2022. Beatriz is Howard Crosby Butler Professor of the History of Architecture at Princeton University and Evangelos Kotsioris, Curatorial Assistant in the Department of Architecture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Radical Pedagogies documents and analyses the long history of experimental architecture education programs that ‘sought to upend disciplinary foundations and conventional assumptions about the nature of...2022-11-271h 03
A is for Architecture PodcastPaul Dobraszczyk: Anarchism, architecture and the polis.In the ninth episode of A is for Architecture’s second season, I speak with Paul Dobraszczyk, architectural writer, teacher, photographer and artist, about his book Architecture and Anarchism: Building Without Authority, published by Paul Holberton in 2021. The book documents sixty examples of what it defines as anarchist projects, which ‘key into a libertarian ethos and desire for diverse self-organised ways of building […] that embrace the core values of traditional anarchist political theory since its divergence from the mainstream of socialist politics in the 19th century.’
You can get the book via Paul Homberton’s website here. You can al...2022-11-191h 09
A is for Architecture PodcastErika Doss: Memorials and memory in America.In the eight episode of this year’s A is for Architecture’s, I speak with Professor Erika Doss of the University of Notre Dame’s Department of American Studies, Indiana. We discuss her book Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America, published by the University of Chicago Press in 2010 which describes and analyses the ‘thousands of new memorials to executed witches, victims of terrorism, and dead astronauts, along with those that pay tribute to civil rights, organ donors, and the end of Communism [which] have dotted the American landscape’ as well as those ‘spontaneous offerings of flowers and candles that materia...2022-11-121h 05
A is for Architecture PodcastGwendolyn Wright: America and the spirit of modernity.In A is for Architecture’s seventh episode in 2022/3's offer, I speak with Professor Gwendolyn Wright of Colombia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation (GSAPP), New York and presenter of PBS’ History Detectives. We met on Zoom to talk about her 2008 book, USA, part of Reaktion Book’s Modern Architectures in History series, a book which ‘traces a history that spans from early skyscrapers and suburbs in the aftermath of the American Civil War up to the museums, schools and ‘green architecture’ of today [describing] diverse interests that affected design, ranging from politicians and developers to ambitious immi...2022-11-031h 24
A is for Architecture PodcastSarah Wigglesworth: Participation, community and sustainable practice.In the sixth episode of 2022/3's A is for Architecture series, I speak with Sarah Wigglesworth, director and founder of Sarah Wigglesworth Architects. Sarah is a writer and educator, as well as one of Britain’s most celebrated architects, with a body of work stretching back over two decades encompassing participation, community and public buildings, housing, masterplanning and urban design work, all of which is (as I read it) shot-through with a conscientiousness about the social potential and obligation of architecture as a discipline and practice, in favour of social, ecological and spatial margins. We speak about Sarah’s prac...2022-10-261h 00
A is for Architecture PodcastSofie Pelsmakers & Elizabeth Donovan: Designing sustainable architecture.In Episode 5 of 2022/23 #aisforarchitecture, I speak with architect-scholars Sofie Pelsmakers and Elizabeth Donovan, about their book Designing for the Climate Emergency: A Guide for Architecture Students, co-written with Urszula Kozminska and Aidan Hoggard, and published by RIBA Books this year. Sofie is associate professor at Tampere University, Finland and Liz is associate professor at Aarhus School of Architecture, Denmark. We speak about #ecology and #sustainability and the ways students of architecture can (and must) begin to reimagine how we #design, outlining the book’s strategies for formulating new approaches to #practice, #space, #materials, #technology and #climate.
Designing for...2022-10-191h 09
A is for Architecture PodcastChristian Parreño: Boredom, capitalism and architecture.In Episode 4 of 2022/23 A is for Architecture, I speak with Christian Parreno, writer, academic and architect, about his book Boredom, Architecture, and Spatial Experience, published by Bloomsbury this year. Christian is assistant professor of history and theory of architecture at Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador and part of the International Society of Boredom Studies research network.
Christian and I speak about some of the themes of his book, not least the condition of boredom as a inherent characteristic of modern urban life, and the ways that modern architecture and cities have established ennui and tedium as...2022-10-121h 17
A is for Architecture PodcastJuliet Davis: Care, urban design and the cityIn the third episode of 2022/3's A is for Architecture series, I speak with Professor Juliet Davis, Head of the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University. Juliet is a scholar, architect, writer and educator. We speak about her recent book The Caring City: Ethics of Urban Design, published this year by Bristol University Press. We talk about Juliet’s motivations for the book, guided by her approach to architecture born of her years in practice and education, and the underlying notion of an ethics of care (and carelessness) on which the book is founded, care as it is encountered in...2022-10-051h 09
A is for Architecture PodcastPierre d'Avoine: Housing, imagination and belonging.In the second episode of 2022/3's A is for Architecture offer, I speak with architect, writer and educator, Pierre d'Avoine, about his book Dwelling on the Future: Architecture of the Seaside, Middle England and the Metropolis, published by UCL Press in 2020. We talk about Pierre's background and his route into architecture, the focus of his work over the years and the motivations and insights of the book. Pierre is principal of Pierre d’Avoine Architects, and teaches at the Architectural Association, running Unit 14 with the architect Pereen d'Avoine, principal of Russian for Fish.
Dwelling on the Future is...2022-09-281h 22
A is for Architecture PodcastTorange Khonsari: Cultural commoning, community and design.In the first episode of Year Two (or Season 2?) of A is for Architecture, I speak with Dr Torange Khonsari, course leader for the Design for Cultural Commons courses at London Metropolitan University, and founder and director of Public Works, a London-based architecture, art and urbanism design practice, which focuses on participatory and performative art, architecture, anthropology and politics. We discuss the idea of commons, at once very ancient spatial, political, social and knowledge spaces, but with current pressures to communal resources, are perhaps of even greater value, even as they disappear. Torange talks about how architecture and designerlypractices...2022-09-211h 14
A is for Architecture PodcastCraig Hamilton: Sacred Architecture, Dialogue and the Classical TraditionIn Episode 32 of A is for Architecture, I speak with architect Craig Hamilton, whose work in the classical tradition, particularly his sacred work, represents another mode of 'doing' architecture in the contemporary period. We speak about his body of buildings, including his Chapel of Christ the Redeemer, at Culham, which Gavin Stamp described as demonstrating that 'classicism today can be resourceful, appropriate, and, in its own terms, truly original. It is a beautiful building.' We speak about the meaning of the classical languages of architecture, their dialogic character, and the possibilities of classical architecture for the contemporary public...2022-07-211h 07
A is for Architecture PodcastVikramaditya Prakash, Maristella Casciato & Daniel E. Coslett: Rethinking Global ModernismIn Episode 31 of A is for Architecture I speak with Maristella Casciato, Vikramaditya Prakash & Daniel E. Coslett about the recent volume they edited, Rethinking Global Modernism: Architectural Historiography and the Postcolonial, published by Routledge this year. The book is a collection of essays and studies which critically reflect of 'other moderns', those spaces, places, people and artefacts which are definitively modern but which, for reasons discussed in the podcast, have historically been excluded from established discourse and the canon. It's a recurrent theme for this podcast, reflecting on the peculiar gatekeeping of modernist architecture that has dominated scholarship, architectural e...2022-07-121h 13
A is for Architecture PodcastAlastair Parvin: Open systems and democratic built environments.In Episode 30 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Alastair Parvin, CEO of Open Systems Lab, co-founder of WikiHouse, writer and architect. Open Systems Lab 'believe that if we want to build a successful, sustainable, fair and inclusive digital economy and to navigate the massive changes of the next half-century, we need to design, invest-in and deploy new open systems for everyone'. We discuss the impact of these things and the implications and possibilities they suggest, particularly for the production and management of the built environment - towns and cities, house and homes (and the gaps in between...2022-06-221h 05
A is for Architecture PodcastMichael Young: Aesthetics, digital images and architectureIn Episode 29 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Michael Young, founder of Young & Ayata and assistant professor at the The Cooper Union, New York. We speak about Michael's recent book, Reality Modelled After Images: Architecture and Aesthetics after the Digital Image, published this year by Routledge. Its a fine book, very thoughtful, tempered by Michael's dual role as a practitioner-scholar. We speak about aesthetics, and its diminished role in modern architectural practice and discourse, and the way digital images constitute a challenge to current readings of aesthetics, situating them within an historical narrative with roots in the...2022-06-161h 14
A is for Architecture PodcastHarriet Harriss: Architecture, intersectionality and the anthropoceneIn Episode 28 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Professor Harriet Harriss (RIBA, ARB, Assoc. AIA, Ph.D., PFHEA, FRSA), Dean of the School of Architecture at the Pratt Institute, New York. We talk about Harriet's writing, educational practice and academic advocacy, and discuss two of her recent books, Architects After Architecture: Alternative Pathways for Practice, which she co-edited with Rory Hyde and Roberta Marcaccio, published by Routledge in 2021, and Working at the Intersection: Architecture After the Anthropocene: 2022, Volume 4 in RIBA Publishing's Design Studio series, co-edited with Naomi House and published this year.
I met Harriet...2022-06-0758 min
A is for Architecture PodcastStefanie Rhodes: Practicing architectureIn Episode 27 of A is for Architecture, I got to speak with architect Stefanie Rhodes, founder and director of the London-based practice, Gatti Routh Rhodes. Stephanie's practice collaborates with civic and theatre clients, exhibition design, as well as domestic work. In short, her work is a good model for the everyday life of a young architecture practice, and the story Stefanie tells is interesting, insightful and rather inspiring as a consequence.
You can find out more about Gatti Routh Rhodes at their website here. Stefanie's LinkedIn page is here. The Bethnal Green Mission Church was reviewed on...2022-05-271h 05
A is for Architecture PodcastBruce Peter: Aeroplanes, hotels and global architecturesIn Episode 26 of A is for Architecture, I speak with the Glasgow School of Art's Professor Bruce Peter, about themes, buildings, people and ideas gleaned from his 2020 book, Jet Age Hotels and the International Style 1950-1965. It's a wonderful book, and Bruce is a remarkably knowledgeable, entertaining and insightful conversationalist. The topic might seem niche, and away from the thing A is for Architecture has done so far, but it isn't. Have a listen and you'll see...
I met Bruce at Glasgow when I got to seem him teach enthralled classes with a verve and energy I...2022-04-281h 10
A is for Architecture PodcastAlbena Yaneva: Bruno Latour, ANT and ArchitectsIn episode 25 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Albena Yaneva, Professor of Architectural Theory at the Manchester School of Architecture, University of Manchester, about her new book, Latour for Architects, published by Routledge at the end of March. In it, we discuss Albena’s reading and application of the work of the great sociologist, Bruno Latour’s and in turn, his reading of society, particularly his important concept of Actor-Network Theory, and his work’s application to the practice and production of architectural thinking. Latour’s work has great influence on contemporary practice, even if often under-played, particul...2022-04-131h 06
A is for Architecture PodcastDean Hawkes: Architects, Environments and ImaginationsIn episode 24 of #aisforarchitecture, I speak with Dean Hawkes, Emeritus Professor of Architectural Design at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University and emeritus fellow of Darwin College, University of Cambridge, about his 2022 book, The Architect and the Academy: Essays on Research and Environment, published by Routledge, and the second edition of his great work, The Environmental Imagination: Technics and Poetics of the Architectural Environment (2019) also by Routledge. We focus on the latter, naturally, and its thoughtful and quietly radical approach to interpreting the icons of modernism and their socio-environmental intelligence, and reflect on the possibilities and function of...2022-04-061h 13
A is for Architecture PodcastNeil Pinder: Teaching design thinkingIn Episode 23 of A is for Architecture, I got to speak with Neil Pinder, Head of Product Design and Architecture at Graveney School, Tooting, London. Elected Honorary Fellow of the RIBA this year, Honorary Professor at the Bartlett, UCL, and (STOP PRESS!), Fellow of the RSA, Neil has spent the last 25 plus years developing programmes for advancing design thinking for secondary school education, expanding the discipline’s reach into underrepresented communities and groups, supporting young learners to develop confidence in design and design thinking, and challenging the profession to promote diverse perspectives and values in its practices, education, communication an...2022-03-301h 12
A is for Architecture PodcastShira de Bourbon Parme: Anthropology and integrated urban developmentIn Episode 22 of A is for Architecture, I speak with architect, urban designer and anthropologist, Shira de Bourbon Parme, co-founder of ForeGrounds and member of the London Collective. Shira's background is as an architect, but through doctoral research in social anthropology, now works alongside developers, planners and architects to guide them in the production of sustainable urban spaces that are rooted in a close and sensitive reading of the social and material nature of places.
I was introduced to Shira through another member of the London Collective, Bee Farrell, a food anthropologist, with whom I work. Shira...2022-03-221h 08
A is for Architecture PodcastJim Stockard: Housing, cohousing and citizenshipIn Episode 21 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Jim Stockard, Lecturer in Urban Planning and Design at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. Jim had a long career as a principal with the Cambridge-based Stockard & Engler & Brigham, as well as serving as an housing advisor to the US government’s Department of Public and Assisted Housing, before joining the GSD. Among other things, Jim curated the Loeb Fellowship for sixteen years. We speak about some ideas from the lecture he gave at the end of his tenure of that - Affordable Housing: It's Just (A) Right, as w...2022-03-151h 13
A is for Architecture PodcastAlan Powers: Modernism's muddy waters.In Episode 20 of A is for Architecture, I speak with historian, writer and professor, Alan Powers, about modernist architecture, any new ways we must view that architectural movement, that embraces its multiplicity of realisations, producers and ideas. In architectural education we tend to fetishize the great figures of modernism, leading to an unfortunate narrowing of what modernism was and is. This has been at the expense of other designers operating during the same period, and responding to the same social, cultural, economic and technological forces, but in ways that diverged from the established identity of the movement.
A...2022-03-041h 11
A is for Architecture PodcastGreg Keeffe: Environmentalism, biomimicry and sustainable citiesIn Episode 19 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Professor Greg Keeffe of the School of Natural and Built Environment, Queens University Belfast, and currently visiting professor at Cornell, about sustainability, ecology and the city as an organism, and architecture as a tool of renewal and political resistance. The conversation builds on two of Greg’s recent pieces of work – Bin Burger, an exhibit displayed as part of the Design Museum’s recent exhibition, Waste Age: What can design do? , and Born, not Made. Designing the Productive City, written with Rob Roggema, a chapter in Designing Sustainable Cities, edited by Rob...2022-02-261h 17
A is for Architecture PodcastOla Uduku: Africa, modernism and encounterIn Episode 18 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Professor Ola Uduku, Head of the Liverpool School of Architecture, University of Liverpool. We speak about two of her books, Learning Spaces in Africa (Routledge, 2018) and Africa Beyond the Post-Colonial (Routledge 2017), a volume she co-edited with Alfred Zack Williams. We talk about the impact of modernity on indigenous modes of dwelling in Africa and ways architectural modernization been experienced there, colonialism and modern architecture's awkward relationship to it, and the ownership of modernity, as a paradigm, a project and an architectural expression.
I met Ola when she...2022-02-201h 00
A is for Architecture PodcastRichard Brook: Manchester, modern city.In Episode 17 of A is for Architecture, I speak with architect Professor Richard Brook of the Manchester School of Architecture, and creator and curator of the online archive Mainstream Modern. We talk about Manchester, its renewal and redevelopment in the postwar years, and the strategic, cultural and creative visions that underpinned its shift to a postindustrial city.
I met Richard through a mutual friend, Bob Proctor, whilst working as Bob's research assistant on a project about postwar churches. Richard's encyclopaedic knowledge of the context and details of British modernism, particularly in the north of England, opened my...2022-02-111h 15
A is for Architecture PodcastJohnny Rodger: Essays, language, performativity and the contemporary.In Episode 16 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Johnny Rodger, Professor of Urban Literature in the Mackintosh School of Architecture at the Glasgow School of Art. We discuss his new book, Key Essays: Mapping the Contemporary in Literature and Culture, published by Routledge in 2021. The written essay has a key role in the education of architects and designers, so understanding its function is a worthwhile endeavour. Johnny addresses this, discussing the essay’s identity as a distinct literary form and its function as a critical practice and academic activity. We also touch on ideas of performativity, the ca...2022-02-051h 02
A is for Architecture PodcastLiam Gillick: Concrete, production, practice and ethics.In Episode 15 of A is for Architecture, I speak with artists and writer Liam Gillick. We start with concrete, move to St Peter’s Seminary, Cardross by Gillespie Kidd and Coia and then sort of let it run, discussing the architectural qualities - spatial and programmatic and critical - of his work. We touch on three pieces Liam has written - Should Be, We Lived and Thought Like Pigs and Why Work? – and talk about the value of art education as an exercise in learning to see. And a lot of other things.
liamgillick.info
Should Be –...2022-01-281h 11
A is for Architecture PodcastMalcolm Fraser: Sustainable architecture, social mixing and democratic spaces.In Episode 14 of A is for Architecture, I spoke with Scottish Architect, Malcolm Fraser, founder and director of Fraser/ Livingstone Architects, based in Edinburgh. We talk about sustainability in the context of culture and place, an important nuance in the face of the bulldozer of one-size-fits-all eco-technic sustainability agendas, elegantly expressed by the nonsense of jet-fuelled COP26. We discuss Malcolm's pieces, Architecture and the Wee Blue Ball and Green Virtues, Green Shoots, and discuss an alternative approach to sustainability which foregrounds people, history and tradition and the accommodation of, or even the promotion of, the intricacies of everyday life...2022-01-2146 min
A is for Architecture PodcastJohn Letherland: Urbanism, masterplanning and placemaking.In Episode 13 of A is for Architecture, I speak with John Letherland, urbanist, masterplanner and director of John Letherland Ltd. John was a founding partner of Farrells, having worked alongside Sir Terry Farrell for 35 years, before setting up his own firm. I work alongside John at the Kent School of Architecture & Planning, where until recently, John ran the urban design Masters programme, MAUD.
In this episode, we speak about the nature and character of urban design and masterplanning as distinct disciplines, related to – and obviously complimentary to - but fundamentally different from architecture. We touch on urban de...2021-12-221h 12
A is for Architecture PodcastHana Loftus: Town planning, architecture and an education in place making.In this, the twelfth episode of A is for Architecture, I speak with Hana Loftus, co-director of HAT Projects, architect and town planner and Engagement and Communications Lead at the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service and Chair of Creative Colchester. HAT Projects are an Essex-based architecture, design and strategy practice. Hana’s role as planner-architect is rare and valuable, offering specific insights into a process often seen as opaque and arbitrary for design professionals. We speak about this, the whys and wherefores of planning as it intersects with the practice of architecture, and ways the discipline might (or should) op...2021-12-131h 09
A is for Architecture PodcastAnne Marie Galmstrup: Programmes, publics and intangibles.In Episode 11 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Anne Marie Galmstrup, director of Galmstrup Architects, London, about local identity, the social practice of architectural design, and the tangible and intangible, which should be at the heart of the processes and outputs of the design of good places.
I met Anne Marie at the 2018 Venice architecture biennale. I was still director of Baxendale with Lee Ivett at the time, so was either helping make the Scottish collateral project or drinking *coffee*. Anne Marie and I spoke about it all - Freespace, community, identity and participation...2021-12-061h 02
A is for Architecture PodcastMaggie Ma and Mark Kingsley: Engagement, housing and Hong Kong.In Episode 10 of A is for Architecture, I speak with the architects and educators Maggie Ma, assistant professor of Architecture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Mark Kingsley, who collectively run the Hong Kong-based not-for-profit architecture practice, Domat. We discuss their work in detail, focusing on the social production of community spaces, particularly for lower-incomed and informal people.
I first met Mark at Sheffield School of Architecture when we both studied in Doina Petrescu's Unit 2, an educational moment which has had a lasting impact on both our careers, orientating us (I think) towards the social c...2021-11-291h 15
A is for Architecture PodcastRobert Adam: Tradition, beauty, authenticity and hybridity.In Episode 9 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Robert Adam, architect, urban designer, author, and visiting professor of urban design at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, about his work in the fields of classical and traditional design. We discuss his mode of practice, outputs and built work in relation to accepted ideas of architectural and spatial modernism, the value of tradition for architecture and urbanism, and the problem of authenticity in the twenty-first century.
I first met Robert in Glasgow, when he came to give a talk for the students. We went to a restaurant...2021-11-2256 min
A is for Architecture PodcastGeraldine Dening: Social housing, urban culture and community action.In Episode 8 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Geraldine Dening, an architect and senior lecturer at Leicester School of Architecture, De Montfort University. Geraldine runs her own practice, Geraldine Dening Architects, and also co-founded Architects for Social Housing, a CIC that grew out of engagement with the housing crisis in London, and which advocates for the maintenance of social housing, the communities that make them, and live in them.
I was put onto Geraldine by another podcast guest, and so wrote out of the blue to ask if she’d be interested in speaking about th...2021-11-151h 25
A is for Architecture PodcastSiraaj Mitha: Widening participation, equality, education and representation.In Episode 7 of A is for Architecture I speak with Siraaj Mitha, an architect and head of Open City's Accelerate, a programme designed to invite the engagement of a wider public in and with the profession of architecture. Open City's programme is designed to increase engagement in the architecture and city-making.
I met Siraaj from Open City's head honcho. I'm glad we did. It was a nice chat.
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t. AisArchitecture
w. aisforarchitecture.org2021-11-0853 min
A is for Architecture PodcastAmica Dall: Writing contemporary architectureIn this, the fourth episode of A is for Architecture, I speak with Amica Dall of the design collective Assemble, about themes and ideas in her talk Are Words Good Enough, delivered as a keynote at the Future Architecture platform's 2021 Creative Exchange: Landscapes of Care conference. I met Amica through Baxendale, a practice I co-directed for a while in Glasgow, seeing her in action via her teaching but particularly her role as a co-founder and trustee of Baltic Street Adventure Playground in the East End of Glasgow.
The conversation is wide-ranging, but comes out of a discussion o...2021-10-1850 min
A is for Architecture PodcastBob Brown: Vernacular architecture, marginal voices and identity.In Episode 3 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Professor Bob Brown, of the University of Plymouth. Bob is an architect and educator with many years’ experience in socially-engaged and community-orientated practice and research, in the Global South and far east, but also in the UK and USA. In our conversation, Bob and I speak about vernacular and indigenous architecture, its relationship to and possibilities for the profession of architecture – both in practice, but also in architecture schools – and the value and meaning of ‘the other’ for practitioners.
I met Bob through his role as an RIBA exter...2021-10-111h 07
A is for Architecture PodcastKathleen James-Chakraborty: The Bauhaus, women and modern architectureIn the second episode of A is for Architecture, I speak with Professor Kathleen James-Chakraborty about her research and writing on twentieth century modernist architecture and design, looking at the nature and impact of the Bauhaus. Fronted by totemic modernists, the Bauhaus only lasted 24 years and yet its influence on everyday culture, even now, has been enormous. Unpacking that, Kathleen and I discuss the ways the Bauhaus was intentionally curated, towards an image of progressive liberalism which perhaps it didn't entirely deserve, particularly in its relationship to the women who were essential to its success and influence.
K...2021-10-041h 16
A is for Architecture PodcastRichard Williams: Reyner Banham, Los Angeles, cars and everyday lifeIn this, the first episode of A is for Architecture, I speak with Professor Richard Williams about his new book, Reyner Banham Revisited, published by Reaktion Books in May 2021. Here's a link: www.reaktionbooks.co.uk
The Professor of Contemporary Visual Cultures at the University of Edinburgh, I first met Richard when he came to give a lecture at the Glasgow School of Art in October 2013, in the Mackintosh Lecture Theatre, before the first fire, after the publication of his book, Sex and Buildings (Reaktion Books 2013). It was a wonderful, rye, candid and witty talk, and the...2021-09-251h 06