Negroni Talks

Architecture As Algorithm: The Demise of Design? As AI storms the gates of the architectural profession, building designers like many other creatives are rightfully asking: “are we already halfway to being replaced?” If intelligence is artificial and algorithms are filtering and fucking with our view of reality, then what is the truth about the future of architects and architecture? With computers...

The building industry has a huge impact in the context of carbon emissions, energy consumption and climate change. Whilst ‘adaptive reuse’ has become a buzzword with louder calls for upgrading, renovating and converting existing buildings instead of creating more new buildings, a culture of demolition persists. With new-build being seen as an easier way to meet increasingly demanding requirements,...

HOME ECONOMICS: Short Term Gain or Longer Term Pain? The City has always maintained a duality as a permanent place of impermanence, with the perpetual comings and goings of buildings, people and concerns. Yet within this state of flux individuals of all backgrounds have consistently managed to find for themselves a sense of rootedness and community, despite the anonymity of strangers or how tempor...

Negroni Talks #S18 - Quality Streets: How To Ensure That Ramsgate’s Future Is Sweet?  Ramsgate is a place on the edge, full of potential and opportunity, but does this really show up in terms of the character of its built environment? Entrepreneurial thinking, initiatives and campaigns from both individuals and groups frequently set sail against the wind of an unstable economy and funding cuts.  S...

The city continually changes despite its perceived permanence as a place; centuries of temporary inhabitation by all kinds of people passing through a built environment seemingly fixed, yet in continual flux. Buildings go up, buildings come down, buildings get repurposed for different uses and short-lived gaps appear in the landscape, whilst a more persistent emptiness can sometimes inexplicably l...

As Robert Hughes stated in The Shock Of The New, “In the C19th, Architecture built palaces for the rich, villas for the upper bourgoise, and ceremonial structures for the state.” and “the poor, the invisible ones, they had no architecture. They had slums.”   Whilst architects in the C20th sought to address this inequality through utopian ideals and design manifestos and often working within the st...

[NOTE: In the opening 18 minutes the recording contains background noise due to technical issues on the night] New Towns: (Any) New Ideas? The New Town is now old - about a hundred years old. From their roots in the visionary Garden City Movement of Ebenezer Howard, to their mid-20th century iterations like Milton Keynes, they have long been touted as a solution to relieve urban overcrowding and h...

Around the world tensions often surround the arrival of a new building development, which challenges the status quo and has implications for local people, buildings and the natural environment alike.  The omnipresent NIMBY ("Not In My Backyard") and a counterpoint that has more recently emerged, the YIMBY ("Yes In My Backyard"), seem to be opposite sides of the same coin in having a great deal to...

The UK public love The Repair Shop on TV, as grandad’s favourite old toy is given a new lease of life. Sadly, in terms of the climate crisis, the re-use of objects has a pretty negligible impact compared to something like the construction industry and we urgently need to look at the consumption and waste involved, whereby perfectly good interiors are ripped out for corporate fit-outs and whole bui...

The different typologies of building and space in which we live are broad and disparate, as housing models have evolved over the centuries to suit different needs. From cellular abodes to open-plan spaces, from the detached residence to mixed-use developments, we have sought to formulate ways to accommodate the changing needs of individuals, families and communities within different environments....

Architects don’t just design buildings, they also ‘craft narratives’ to help explain them. Storytelling and the art of telling a good story plays an important role in successfully getting permissions and selling ideas to clients. This frequently involves some weird and wonderful language that pushes the boundaries of believability and comprehension, in both fellow professionals and the wider publi...

Do we think that architects are fit-for-purpose in the 21st century? The world is seemingly changing at an incredibly rapid pace, with the needs of clients and society in a state of constant flux. Strangely, it seems that both practice and education remain largely static however, we now know that the manner in which we have been taught to be architects in the last 30 years, is maybe no longer good...

Sir John Soane built Pitzhanger Manor at a time when Ealing was considered a nice location to have a ‘country retreat’. Things have obviously moved on since 1804 and in 2024 the house can be found sitting within the hustle and bustle of the Broadway – featuring shops, restaurants, offices and 200+ years’ worth of speculative residential developments. Soane wouldn’t recognise Ealing of the 21st cen...

We’re living in housing crisis, and apparently a loneliness epidemic with everyone shut away doing their own thing behind closed doors. Surely the answer to this is for human beings to move away from the isolationism of their personal pursuits in property, and head back to what human civilisation has always been about, namely sharing resources and, most importantly, space. The public realm traditi...

You’re an architect until you die, it’s a vocation and not a job. At least, that’s what some people would have you believe, with starchitects continuing to design well into their 90’s and succession plans drawn up to keep their practices going after they have left this mortal coil. Meanwhile, newly qualified architects emerging from years of study are met with a culture of “welcome to the real wor...

The Barbican is under siege! This might seem to be a natural and unremarkable occurrence for a medieval fortified outpost. However, the Barbican in question is a mixed-use residential and cultural complex within the City of London. Home to cinemas, concert halls, the LSO and over 4000 residents, it is also an international symbol of 'modern architecture' and a unique estate within the financial he...

One headphone out, keys in hand and checking the street behind you is a familiar experience for a lot of people on their way home, particularly women and those from marginalised groups. And these feelings are not purely anecdotal, as a recent report from the fitness app Strava revealed that UK women are twice as likely to feel unsafe on a run when compared to the global average. In a similar vein,...

Mods or Trads? History and Histrionics In Architecture According to social media, we are in the middle of a culture war for both the past and future of architecture. Lines have been drawn and tribes are assembling on a beach with the tide coming in. On one side we have groups that want to protect our modernist heritage and seem to enjoy high-quality contemporary architecture. On the other is a gro...

We’ve seen hemp houses and walls made of rammed earth, rammed stone and anything else you can ‘ram’. Timber has designers drooling at the mention of the word and there was even a show about straw last year that had architects queuing round the block. There is a huge appetite for a ‘return to the natural’ with ‘new’ (maybe old!) and exciting building materials, however, the practical implementation...

How many times have we heard the phrase “race to the bottom” when it comes to architects discussing fees and design quality. With practices closing their doors and citing the undercutting of their fees as a key factor, competition seems to have defeated camaraderie and we have to ask if the profession is eating itself? We want clients (both public and private) to respect the quality that an archit...

Negroni Talk #S9 AI or Die: Advance or Interference? by Fourthspace

Having provoked debates interrogating all things “Architectural” from its base in east London, “Negroni talks…!” is hitting the road to discover how the Politics Of Architecture plays out in other parts of the UK. Heading North, South, East and West, The Negroni Talks On the Road Tour aims to hold ‘4 talks in 4 towns’, taking a look at what’s happening on the ground by focusing on local factors th...

Absurdity In Architecture When you think about it, Architecture is quite absurd. The importance placed upon the differences between one building design and another, the dedication to detail, the careful choreography and the assertions of taste and quality, all seem to be on a different planet when one looks up at the huge global issues that confront us. The time and energy, the resources spent on...

Decency By Design What does it mean to be an ethical architect? Is it about the way you run an architectural practice, the type of work you produce, the people you work for? They say that ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’ and whilst we’re seeing a growing trend of practices becoming B-Corps, does that mean you’re a ‘decent’ company? With the de-regulatory drive to relax the rules an...

Negroni Talk #S7 - FROM HERO TO (NET)ZERO: Carbon Footprints We are in a climate emergency and the built environment contributes 30-40% of the world’s carbon emissions. We have to do something about this and seemingly some governments across the world have belatedly recognised the collective need for us to head towards a net-zero future. Ok, so there’s a plan and we all know what we’re doing, righ...