A is for Architecture Podcast

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 Ce...

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 tacti...

In 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 […]...

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 te...

In 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...

Episode 9/3 of A is for Architecture is a conversation with the architect, artist, writer and teacher, Tom de Paor, ‘one of Ireland’s foremost architects’. We speak about a lot of things, but spend most time thinking about his work Desert/ Dysart , documented beautifully in a book with Peter Maybury, published by Gall Editions as part of Maybury and Paul Clarke’s Notations collection , and due for...

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 a...

Episode 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...

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 proce...

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 replicati...

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 Pres...

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 a...

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 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...

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....

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 prac...

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  Ver...

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...

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 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 e...

In Episode 31/2 of A is for Architecture , Torsten Schmiedeknecht and Jill Rudd discusses their recent book, Building Children’s Worlds: The Representation of Architecture and Modernity in Picturebooks , a collection of essays by various scholars, co-edited with Emma Hayward, and which was published by Routledge this year. Jill is Professor of English at the University of Liverpool and Torsten is...

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 COVI...

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 Lever...

In Season 2, Episode 28 of A is for Architecture , Gordana Fontana Giusti discusses her 2013 book, Foucault for Architects , published by Routledge , as part of the Thinkers for Architects series. Gordana is Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at Kent School of Architecture & Planning , University of Kent , where she also serves as Deputy Head of School. Foucault for Architects ‘concent...

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, a...