A is for Architecture Podcast

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 De s ign 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 poli...

In 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 reso...

In 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 an...

In Episode 30 of A is for Architectur e, 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 disc...

In 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...

In 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 wit...

In 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 intere...

In 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 fo...

In 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...

In 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 Environment...

In 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 educati...

In 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 tha...

In 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...

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....

In 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 ex...

In 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 dwellin...

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...

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 functio...

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? –...

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 . W...

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,...

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, offerin...

In Episode 11 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Anne Marie Galmstru p, 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...

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 inf...

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 f...