A is for Architecture Podcast

In 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 online to see of his and Invisible Studio’s work. Some recent highlights include a rammed earth yoga studio, a shelter from ‘timber sourced within the Westonbirt arboretum in Gloucestershire, England’, and a mixed-use performing arts centre in Watchet, England. Invisible Studio was featured in a lovely wee movie, made by Laura Mark and Jim Stephenson, as part of their Practice series, in 2020. Invisible Studio’s website includes a blog, documenting the practice’s thinking and work, as well as other media matters. Piers is on the socials, too, and you can find him on Twitter here (Invisible Studio is here), and on Instagram here. Happy listening! + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + aisforarchitecture.org Apple: podcasts.apple.com Spotify: open.spotify.com Google: podcasts.google.com Amazon: music.amazon.co.uk

In 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 build a sustainable future in a time of climate change and dwindling resources?’ and goes on to document a number of global projects by leading architects which have embraced creative/ adaptive reuse as a means of enhancing existing fabric, reducing waste and maintaining cultural and historical identity in places where the normative option may have otherwise been the knock down/ rebuild model. You can see Ruth’s LinkedIn profile here, and she tweets here. I met Ruth through her publishers, a guest suggestion by my boss, Chloe Street Tarbatt.  Alongside being generally polymathic, Ruth is great to hear speak, believe. Happy listening! + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + aisforarchitecture.org Apple: podcasts.apple.com Spotify: open.spotify.com Google: podcasts.google.com Amazon: music.amazon.co.uk

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: An Alternative Handbook on Architecture, Dis/Ability and Designing for Everyday Life (2014) and as editor, Disability, Space, Architecture: A Reader (2017), both published by Routledge. The Handy Guide: The DisOrdinary Architecture Project infographic sheet can be downloaded here, and is on Issuu here. You can hear Jos speak on some of the ideas we cover here at the Arizona State University - DisOrdinary Architecture: A Virtual Lecture by Dr. Jos Boys; at the Architectural Association- Doing Dis/ability and Architecture Differently?; and for A+DS, where Jos gave the Andy MacMillan Lecture 2021 - The DisOrdinary Architecture Project. There is much else online, so have a good look. I met Jos through Kathy Li at the Glasgow School of Art, when after Fire 1, and teaching out of a rather dour spec office on Sauchiehall Street, Jos came up and gave us all a dose of hope. She’s really quite wonderful, so have a listen, do. Happy listening! + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + aisforarchitecture.org Apple: podcasts.apple.com Spotify: open.spotify.com Google: podcasts.google.com Amazon: music.amazon.co.uk

In 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 architecture […] challenged modernist and colonial norms, decentered building, imagined new roles for the architect, and envisioned participatory forms of practice’ in favour of greater diversity, insight, democratic voice and justice, and away from top-down educational - and practice -models. You can get the book via MIT Press’ website here; it’s certainly worth a look. You can also find out more about Beatriz Colomina here,  and listen to her lecture on similar themes to the book for the Strelka Institute here, in a lecture she gave in 2019, entitled Radical Pedagogies. Evangelos can be found at MoMA here, on Instagram here, on LinkedIn here and watched speaking about the façade of the UN Secretariat Building as part of MoMA’s ArtSpeaks program here. As any of us in it, or who’ve gone through it might attest, architectural education seems to trend to the centre, and its base form remains remarkably resilient to change, even in the face of the great technical, social and cultural shifts that have transformed the contemporary world. Radical Pedagogies documents the visions – hopes, I suppose – of folk who tried, and in many cases succeeded, in testing new forms of learning practice in the face of this shifting landscape. Happy listening! + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + aisforarchitecture.org Apple: podcasts.apple.com Spotify: open.spotify.com Google: podcasts.google.com Amazon: music.amazon.co.uk

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 also find out more about Paul Dobraszczyk on his personal website, including his portfolio of photography, writing and art, as well as an ace blog and links to his socials (under construction…). His Instagram is here, anyway, and his Twitter is here. I’ve always been intrigued by the possibilities of anarchism, although I’ve been too disorganised to sign up to any particular group. Paul does a decent job at explaining it, and its role and potential in and for the contemporary city. Happy listening! + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + aisforarchitecture.org Apple: podcasts.apple.com Spotify: open.spotify.com Google: podcasts.google.com Amazon: music.amazon.co.uk

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 materialize at sites of tragic and traumatic death.’ Pitched around the sticky territory of history versus memory and the rights the them, the podcast reflects on the role of memory culture as a cultural, spatial and material instrument in urban culture. You can get the book via The University of Chicago Press’ website here. You can also hear Erika talk on The Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History at The University of Texas at Dallas’ podcast here, and also give a talk – Public Art, Public Feelings: Creativity and Controversy in Public Culture Today- at the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design in 2010. You can watch Erika speak at the Minneapolis Institute of Art here, with a talk entitled Monumental Troubles: Reckoning with Problematic Public Art in America. The tension between history and memory for architects is a significant one, and the rise of memory-culture is a huge cultural shift off which architecture increasingly depends, so Erika’s insights are meaningful and valuable. Happy listening! + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + aisforarchitecture.org Apple: podcasts.apple.com Spotify: open.spotify.com Google: podcasts.google.com Amazon: music.amazon.co.uk

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 immigrants and middle-class citizens […] Wright reframes the history of American architecture as one of constantly evolving and volatile sensibilities, engaged with commerce, attuned to new media, exploring multiple concepts of freedom.’ You can get the book via The University of Chicago Press’ website here. You can also hear Gwen talk at GSAPP with Michael Kimmelman about architecture’s public, in a presentation entitled Who's Listening? Also, here she is speaking when accepting the Society of Architectural Historian’s Award for Excellence in Architectural Media in 2012, and here  about History Detectives as part of the Chicago Humanities Festival. Gwen’s website is here; her LinkedIn is here. Gwen is an amazing communicator, a seriously insightful analyser of modern architecture and a delightful person to listen to. The book is marvellous, of course, as you shall hear… Happy listening! + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + aisforarchitecture.org Apple: podcasts.apple.com Spotify: open.spotify.com Google: podcasts.google.com

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 practice, her background in practice and education, and some of the myriad motivations which underpin her work, including her recent renovations to her home, 9-10 Stock Orchard Street, school design schemes and [a few threads of] the rich tapestry of influences that inform her approach to design. Sarah Wigglesworth Architects can be gotten to here; you can hear Sarah speak about the scheme here for Dezeen, and with New London Architecture here. There’s info on Stock Orchard Steet here, as part of the Open House Festival. There’s a good essay in AR on her dining table here. SWA’s Twitter is good too, as is their Instagram. There’s lots more online, not least SWA’s own online repository, which contains many articles by and on her and her practice’s work. Happy listening! + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + aisforarchitecture.org Apple: podcasts.apple.com Spotify: open.spotify.com Google: podcasts.google.com

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 the Climate Emergency: A Guide for Architecture Students, can be found on RIBA Books here. Sofie’s professional profile can be found here, and here personal webpage is here. Liz’s professional profile can be found here. Sofie’s Twitter is here, and her Instagram is here; she co-founded Architecture for Change with Stephen Choi, and has published other very decent books: The Environmental Design Pocketbook, published by RIBA (2012) and edited (with Nick Newman),  Design Studio Vol. 1: Everything Needs to Change - Architecture and the Climate Emergency, again with RIBA Publishing in 2021.  Iloista kuuntelua! + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + w. aisforarchitecture.org Apple: podcasts.apple.com Spotify: open.spotify.com Google: podcasts.google.com Amazon: podcasters.amazon.com

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 characteristics of everyday life. The book, Boredom, Architecture, and Spatial Experience, can be found here. Christian’s professional profile can be found here and his Instagram profile here. Christian’s talk, Boredom, Suicide and the Architecture of 1 Poultry Street, London can be watched on YouTube here. Bonne écoute. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + aisforarchitecture.org Apple: podcasts.apple.com Spotify: open.spotify.com Google: podcasts.google.com Amazon: podcasters.amazon.com