A is for Architecture

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Shira de Bourbon Parme: Anthropology and integrated urban development

A is for Architecture

03/22/22 • 68 min

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 that are rooted in a close and sensitive reading of the social and material nature of places.

I was introduced to Shira through another member of the London Collective, Bee Farrell, a food anthropologist, with whom I work. Shira holds a doctorate from the Future of Cities programme at the University of Oxford, for a thesis entitled How do master planners think? A sociomaterial inquiry (2018).

Enjoy!

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Music credits: Bruno Gillick.

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Tahl Kaminer: Modern architecture and the political

A is for Architecture

10/25/21 • 67 min

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 (Routledge) and his 2011 book Architecture, crisis and resuscitation: The reproduction of post-Fordism in late-twentieth-century architecture (Routledge).

I met Tahl when I worked in Glasgow, at an interview, then later in Cardiff. I use his books in my teaching, and was involved briefly in one of the schemes he describes, the Atelier d'architecture autogérée in Paris, France.

Tahl's academic profile can be found here: www.cardiff.ac.uk/people

Amica Dall: Writing contemporary architecture

A is for Architecture

10/18/21 • 50 min

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 teaching but particularly her role as a co-founder and trustee of Baltic Street Adventure Playground in the East End of Glasgow.

The conversation is wide-ranging, but comes out of a discussion on the role of language in architecture and for architects, and its importance if architecture is to be a tool for coproducing the common good.

Enjoy!

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Music credits: Bruno Gillick

Albena Yaneva: Covid, bodies, cities and urban things.

A is for Architecture

05/04/23 • 60 min

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 COVID is the first book to explore the pandemic's transformative impacts upon the architectural profession. It raises new questions about the intertwined natures of architectural production, science, society, and spatial practice [exploring] how the pandemic modified the spatial conventions of everyday life in the city, [...] transformed building typologies [and] leads us to rethink the social dimension of architecture and urban design; and ultimately proposes a radical re-evaluation of the conditions of architectural practice’.

Well, that’s what the blurb says, anyway. ‘Listen to Albena and see if it’s right.

Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts and Amazon Music.

Albena can be found on the Manchester School of Architecture website here, and she Twitters here; her LinkedIn is here. You can get the book here. Our previous conversation, Bruno Latour, ANT and Architecture can be gotten on Spotify and iTunes.

Thanks for listening.

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Music credits: Bruno Gillick

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Spotify: open.spotify.com

Amazon: music.amazon.co.uk

Charles Holland: Co-Living in the Countryside.

A is for Architecture

06/08/23 • 58 min

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 Verity-Jane Keefe, urban designer Joseph Zeal-Henry and the Quality of Life Foundation.

‘Co-living in the Countryside responds to the brief for co-living and proposes a new rural housing typology [allowing for] shared spaces, flexible and adaptable house types and an approach based on mutual, cooperative governance’ on a site in Sussex.

There’s much online about Charles’ work, both recent and in his previous iteration as founder-director of FAT, a design practice with a remarkable body of work that challenged the pieties of much late modern architecture. You can have a look at it here. You can find Charles on Twitter, Insta and LinkedIn. Co-Living has been covered in Dezeen, Architecture Today and the AJ (£), among others.

Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts and Amazon Music.

Thanks for listening.

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Music credits: Bruno Gillick

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Spotify: open.spotify.com