What if Architects became Developers?
Matt Bloomfield discovers that Roger Zogolovitch writes as well as he builds, but notes that good housing doesn’t come cheap. Zogolovitch, R. (2015) Shouldn’t we all be developers? Artifice Books Electioneering at the start of summer 2015 has brought the issue of housing shortages out of the architectural press and into the mainstream. The major parties promised that they would oversee the creation of two or three hundred...
Free Will: An Illusion?
By Joel Mills | 12 October 2015 Free will is an illusion. Quite a claim, and one that dominates much contemporary scientific thinking, and the pivotal driver for Julian Baggini to write his latest book Freedom Regained: The Possibility of Free Will. Baggini is a much-respected ‘popular’ philosopher, marked out by an ability to offer a nuanced, insightful take on complex subjects. Here, through some compelling narratives, he grapples...
Ai Weiwei at the Royal Academy
– by Rozie Saunders – In October of 2010, Ai Weiwei filled the turbine hall at the Tate Modern with 100 million handmade porcelain sunflower seeds. In April 2011, he was arrested by the Chinese government and held at a secret location in solitary confinement for 81 days. His passport was confiscated for four years and not returned until July, this year. For the first time since Sunflower Seeds, Ai Weiwei has been able...
Context by Eric Parry
by Chloe Spiby Loh | 24 August 2015 The latest edition to the AD Primer series comes in the form of Eric Parry’s contemplation on ‘Context’; a gathering of his personal preoccupations on specific locations and projects from a lifetime teaching, travelling and practicing. Parry cites his interests as between art, architecture and anthropology and it is this mix, alongside his background in education that makes this book rich with...
Late-Nite Review – COMING SOON
Set up by the Future Cities Project, Late-Nite Review: The Future City is a new forum for critical exchange within the profession, an autonomous environment in which to develop open inquiry. The forum provides a space where architects present their work to a panel of architects, critics, commentators and pundits as a means to open up discussion, explore new ideas and debate the future direction of the city. For further details,...
Tianjin in perspective
by Austin Williams | 19 August 2015 “Disasters on the scale of (this) tragic explosion … tend to provoke a brief wave of statements that such things must never happen again. With the passage of time these sentiments are diluted into bland reports about human error and everything being well under control… (but), there is a real chance that the death toll could trigger meaningful changes in a neglected aspect of...
Playing Rough
Review by Matt Bloomfield | 01 August 2015 This summer in London has seen the opening of two exhibitions, both set against a backdrop of brutalism and with a pronounced vein of playfulness. The RIBA Gallery is currently occupied by The Brutalist Playground, an interactive installation created by architecture and design collective du jour- Assemble, in collaboration with artist Simon Terrill. Meanwhile, the Hayward Gallery on the...
A Tale of Two Cities
by Rozie Saunders | 10 July 2015 Are soaring property prices that push young Londoners out of their city, simply a price for London’s global success? Is London becoming a millionaires’ playground rather than a bustling model of urban living? We report on the city’s perceived identity crisis. London is allegedly losing its sense of self. The consensus seems to be that ordinary people are being priced out of the housing...
‘What is public space’ Future Cities Salon, Porto
Alastair Donald | 22 June 2015 In Porto this week the Future Cities Salon continues its series of discussions on the future of public space. Early 20th century Modernism sought to provide public open space within cities as a release from the confines of overcrowded, unsanitary slums. Nowadays, public space is everywhere but there is less recognition and more proscription about what and who it is for. Many 20th-century residential...
The dangers of ‘resilience’
Maja Schwoerer | 22 June 2015 Maja Schwoerer reports on the Future Cities Salon debate at the Building Centre in London. The recent debate, Crisis is the New Normal: what is a Resilient City?, brought together an interesting panel of architects, journalists and sustainability experts. ‘Resilience’ is a buzzword sweeping the entire industry and seemingly provides solutions for everything – be it civil war in Damascus, floods in the...
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