A is for Architecture Podcast

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...

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. ++++...

In Episode 6 of A is for Architecture , I speak with Lee Ivett, course leader at the Grenfell Baines Institute of Architecture , University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN), as well as director of Baxendale , a practice based in Glasgow and Preston. Lee’s critically acclaimed body of work includes small and medium-scale projects in a very broad range of places and contexts across Europe, and addresse...

In Episode 5 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Dr Tahl Kaminer of the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University, about his research on ideas of political identity , agency and practice in architecture, and how architects have addressed (and sometimes still do!) their social role. We talk around and about his 2016 book, The Efficacy of Architecture: Political contestation and agency (Ro...

In 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 t...

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 a...

In 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...

In 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 th...