A is for Architecture Podcast

• Patrick Lynn Rivers & Kai Wood Mah: Situated practices.

  The A is for Architecture Podcast’s newest episode is a conversation with North American scholars, social scientist Patrick Lynn Rivers and design historian Kai Wood Mah, about their book, Situated Practices in Architecture and Politics, published by Dalhousie Architectural Press in 2024.In our conversation, Patrick and Kai speak of the importance of situated learning and practice, which involves architects engaging with communities to co-create knowledge as a mode not just of transforming spaces and making things, but as an ethnographic means of seeing things through the eyes of communities. Situated practices, they argue, force a necessary politicisation of design thinking, and are as such essential for architects to adapt to post-colonial challenges and contribute to global change.Patrick is professor at SAIC in Chicago, has a personal website here, and can be found on LinkedIn and Insta. Kai is Associate Professor in the McEwan School of Architecture at the Laurentian University, Canada and also has a website. Both Patrick and Kai co-direct the design research practice a.field. The book is linked above.Much to ponder, so little time. Get to it!+Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick Image credit: Pilgrimage to Biete Gabriel-Rufael by Robert Wilson. 

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• Hans van der Heijden: A rationalist architecture.

  In the latest episode of the A is for Architecture Podcast Amsterdam-based architect Hans van der Heijden discuss themes of his design work and writing. Founder of Hans van der Heijden Architects, a practice which track context through deep research realised in, as I see it, a sort-of fitting architecture.Hans and I connected over a mutual interest in the pursuit of the/ a common city. Our conversation centres on Hans’ book, The Residential Palazzo (Het woonpalazzo) in Design Research, Education and Practice, published this year by HvdHA which, along with the built work Hans speaks of, raises important questions. How must we build, given all the things, to accommodate the lineage of a common culture and place? And why do we still, even after all, fail to do so? What drives contemporary urban incoherence? And how might we arrest this? The answer, of course, is study, observation, seeing and hearing. It’s an architecture Hans proposes that is ground in attentiveness and, I would say, generosity. Through the careful study of the city and its parts, and by designing in concord with the city’s fabric as is, and the people who actually live and work there, architects can, in Hans’ words, ‘develop a sort of reservoir of a priori knowledge which […] lends you a kind of professional integrity.’Strong medicine indeed.Hans van der Heijden Architects are to be found here. Hans is on Instagram here.  +Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick 

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• Peter Apps: Home making and unmaking.

  In this episode of the A is for Architecture Podcast the journalist, writer and Deputy Editor at Inside Housing, Peter Apps discusses his very recent book, Homesick: How Housing Broke London and How to Fix It, published by One World Publications in September this year.Peter became something of a big noise when he won the Orwell Prize for Political Writing in 2023 for his book, Show Me the Bodies: How We Let Grenfell Happen, also published with Oneworld. In that, Peter’s account exposed the systemic failures, negligence and cost-cutting in construction and regulation that led to the preventable 2017 Grenfell Tower fire. In Homesick, and sort-of by extension, Peter examines London's housing crisis, details how skyrocketing costs, inequality, and policy failures have made homes unaffordable, and proposes solutions to address another systemic issues towards housing justice.Listen to Peter, read his books and think on’t. It’s time.Thanks to Peter for the time, effort and conversation. Thanks to Margot at One World for the PDF of the book and images. The book is linked above; Peter can be found on Substack, LinkedIn and X.+Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick Image credit: Trevor Patt (2015) Creative Commons Licence off Flickr: Robin Hood Gardens, London. Allison and Peter Smithson, 1972

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• Stefano Boeri: Architecture with nature.

  In the A is for Architecture Podcast’s latest episode, Stefano Boeri - architect, urban planner, Professor of Urban Planning at Milan Polytechnic, President of the Future of the City Foundation and former editor of Domus (among some other things…) - joined to speak about his upbringing and education in Milan and Venice, his influences, mentors and inspirations, and the development of his design thinking and practice, Stefano Boeri Architetti. Now a leading voice in European – and more recently global – architecture, Professor Boeri’s work presents us with a new and beguiling vision, one that combines modern urban lifestyles with a genuine concern for nature, habitat and the co-living of species in the contemporary city.Stefano Boeri Architetti are perhaps best known for their pioneering work integrating vegetation and sustainability into urban architecture, most famously in the Bosco Verticale in Milan (2009-14) —as well as visionary research, writing and planning on biodiversity, urban forestry and the future of cities. As I hear it, running through Stefano’s work is a deep interest in the notion of plurality, networks and coalescence. It’s a transcendental vision, in the final analysis, one which seeks to elevate architecture, to make it important, instrumental and effective. Beyond the image – and few contemporary architects have captured the zeitgeist as well as Stefano Boeri Architetti – is a deep knowledge, great sensitivity and a fundamental optimism, that through and with architecture, we can make good change happen.So, worth a listen.Stefano can be found almost universally online. His practice and academic positions are linked above, and he can be met at Instagram; his practice are on LinkedIn. +Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick Image credits: 1/ Boeri Studio - Vertical Forest, Photographer: Dimitar Harizanov (2020); 2/ Stefano Boeri, Curator, Photographer: Laila Pozzo ©Michelangelo Foundation

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• James Benedict Brown & Derek Jones: The design studio.

  In the newest episode of the A is for Architecture Podcast, I got to speak to Derek Jones and James Benedict Brown, two of five scholars responsible for the very recently published Studio Properties: A Field Guide to Design Education, published by Bloomsbury this year and also available as an open access publication on the Bloomsbury website. Alongside Elizabeth Boling, James Corazzo, Colin M. Gray and Nicole Lotz, James and Derek have written a book to help clarify the operation of the design studio in education. Repositioning ‘studio’ not as a monolithic entity but as a landscape made up of many interlocking properties, each of which has a character that can be encouraged or diminished to build better design thinking and culture. James, Derek and I discuss a few of these properties, where they can be seen, how they operate, how educators might interpret them and intervene in them to build better designers.Clever chaps, clever book. Have a sticky and see.James is Associate Professor of Architecture at Umeå School of Architecture and is on LinkedIn; Derek is Senior Lecturer in Design at The Open University and can be found on LinkedIn. The book is linked above and also on the Studio Properties website, where all the things can be found.+Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick 

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