What’s My Favorite Building in New York?
In May 2015, New York Real Estate/Design/Lifestyle blog 6sqft – whom ArchDaily maintains a kind of loose partnership with – asked a bunch of writers, critics and whatnot to write about their favorite building in New York. I was in the odd position of being seemingly the only writer of the group who had never actually been to New York, but that didn’t stop 6sqft from happily publishing my opinions (though it may have something to do with my bottom-place billing on the final article). You can read the full article here, and my contribution below. (more…)
Non-Design: Architecture’s (Counter-Intuitive) Future
Global architecture underwent a seismic shift in the 20th Century. Governments, keen to mitigate the impoverishing effects of rapid urbanization and two world wars embarked on ambitious social housing programs, pairing with modernists who promised that design could be the solution to social inequality and poverty. Today, the problems inherent in these mid-century tower blocks are well documented and well known, and these modernist solutions to poverty are often seen as ill-conceived failures.
If the 20th century was all about designing to solve social problems, then the 21st century has been about the exact opposite – not designing to solve social problems. These days, it is much more common to see architects praising the social order and even aesthetic of illegal slums, which in many cases provide their residents with a stronger community and higher quality of life than did many formal social housing projects of the past. The task of architects (both today’s and tomorrow’s) is to develop this construction logic: to use design and, rather counter-intuitively, non-design to lift these urban residents out of their impoverished conditions.
100 11th Avenue, Manhatten, New York, by Ateliers Jean Nouvel
My submission for the AJ Writers’ Prize in 2011. The brief in this instance was simply to produce a write-up on a recent building which you admire.
“Hell is Other People”: How Existentialism Sheds Light on the Failures of Modernist Housing Projects
This piece was an abstract written for San Rocco issue 5, with the theme “Scary Architects”. Although the submission was not successful, I am including it here in an effort for completeness.
Review of the Northumbria University Degree Show, 2012
This is a review I wrote for GRADmag, a bi-monthly publication which was released by the ArchiGRAD scheme to keep local architecture practices abreast of the scheme’s endeavors. As I had left the scheme at the time, my review was unsurprisingly ousted from the final publication in favour of another – however I publish it here in an attempt at completeness.
Review of the Turner Prize 2012
This is a review I wrote for GRADmag, a bi-monthly publication which was released by the ArchiGRAD scheme to keep local architecture practices abreast of the scheme’s endeavors. The full review pits the opinions of another reviewer (‘the cynic’) against me (‘the sypathiser’). A slightly edited down version of the review in situ can be seen here.
Impossible Utopia
07-09-2012, 01:15 (more…)
The Discord of Modern ‘Place’
30-12-11, 21:10 (more…)
Shitegeist
06-01-11, 15:30 (more…)
My World View and its Relationship to Architecture
05-12-2010, 01:30 (more…)
Peer Pressure
22-11-2010, 00:10 (more…)
Innovation
21-11-2010, 22:50 (more…)
Culturalism
21-11-2010, 22:20 (more…)
The Importance of Hapticity
17-10-10, 16:00 (more…)
Architectural Disconnection
10-09-2010, 21:00 (more…)
Parallels Between Architecture and Evolution
10-09-2010, 21:00 (more…)
On Beauty #2
19-08-2010, 01:15 (more…)
On Beauty #1
19-08-2010, 00:30 (more…)
Is the goal to achieve a truly sustainable architecture possible given the trajectory of contemporary culture?
This article was written in response to the question in the title. It has been published in the ‘Forum’ section of ‘Scroope: The Cambridge Architecture Journal’ issue 21, which was released in 2012. (more…)
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