In Episode 32 of A is for Architecture, I speak with architect Craig Hamilton, whose work in the classical tradition, particularly his sacred work, represents another mode of 'doing' architecture in the contemporary period. We speak about his body of buildings, including his Chapel of Christ the Redeemer, at Culham, which Gavin Stamp described as demonstrating that 'classicism today can be resourceful, appropriate, and, in its own terms, truly original. It is a beautiful building.' We speak about the meaning of the classical languages of architecture, their dialogic character, and the possibilities of classical architecture for the contemporary public. Craig speaks about his approach to scared space too, which is embedded within a very old discourse around cult and the numinous, as well as his design method, based on hand drawing and the close study and deep knowledge of historic precedent, realised through very high quality making. Craig's practice website can be found here, and contains a good selection of downloadable articles on his work. Gavin Stamp's article, Art and Soul is in Architecture Today and can be read here. You can watch Craig discussing his home, Coed Mawr, with the Architecture Foundation, here. There's much else online, so if you fancy, have a sticky. Ellis Woodman's book Temples and Tombs: The Scared and Monumental Work of Craig Hamilton can be found here, published by Lund Humprhies in 2019.   Enjoy! + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + aisforarchitecture.org Apple: podcasts.apple.com Spotify: open.spotify.com Google: podcasts.google.com

In Episode 31 of A is for Architecture I speak with Maristella Casciato, Vikramaditya Prakash  & Daniel E. Coslett about the recent volume they edited, Rethinking Global Modernism: Architectural Historiography and the Postcolonial, published by Routledge this year. The book is a collection of essays and studies which critically reflect of 'other moderns', those spaces, places, people and artefacts which are definitively modern but which, for reasons discussed in the podcast, have historically been excluded from established discourse and the canon. It's a recurrent theme for this podcast, reflecting on the peculiar gatekeeping of modernist architecture that has dominated scholarship, architectural education and public perceptions of what modernism is and, by extension, what it is to be modern.    I was fortunate enough to be introduced to Maristella, Daniel and Vikram by Fran Ford at Routledge, Vikram also hosts a podcast, Architecture Talk, which you should also listen to. We also touch on another recent book which Vikram wrote, One Continuous Line: Art, Architecture and Urbanism of Aditya Prakash, published by Mapin in 2021, and with an introduction by Maristella.  Enjoy! + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + aisforarchitecture.org Apple: podcasts.apple.com Spotify: open.spotify.com Google: podcasts.google.com

In Episode 30 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Alastair Parvin, CEO of Open Systems Lab, co-founder of WikiHouse, writer and architect. Open Systems Lab 'believe that if we want to build a successful, sustainable, fair and inclusive digital economy and to navigate the massive changes of the next half-century, we need to design, invest-in and deploy new open systems for everyone'. We discuss the impact of these things and the implications and possibilities they suggest, particularly for the production and management of the built environment - towns and cities, house and homes (and the gaps in between). Alastair and I talk about all this with reference to three pieces he has written: A New Land Contract, Planning for the Future and We need new operating systems. Whose job is that?, all linked here but available on Alastair's Medium page. I met Alastair At Sheffield School of Architecture, where we both studied. His work, which incorporates stints at RSH+P and Architecture 00, is a wonderful example of the possibilities afforded by engaging with socio-spatial and process thinking. Follow the links above to Al's articles, and watch him TED the roof off here: Architecture for the people by the people. He also gave a talk entitled The Future of Regulations at the Radical Practice Conference 2020, Royal College of Art & Dark Matter Laboratories, which is worth a sticky. Enjoy! + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + aisforarchitecture.org Apple: podcasts.apple.com Spotify: open.spotify.com Google: podcasts.google.com

In Episode 29 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Michael Young, founder of Young & Ayata and assistant professor at the The Cooper Union, New York. We speak about Michael's recent book, Reality Modelled After Images: Architecture and Aesthetics after the Digital Image, published this year by Routledge. Its a fine book, very thoughtful, tempered by Michael's dual role as a practitioner-scholar. We speak about aesthetics, and its diminished role in modern architectural practice and discourse, and the way digital images constitute a challenge to current readings of aesthetics, situating them within an historical narrative with roots in the Beaux-Arts architectural tradition. I was introduced to Michael by Fran Ford, Senior Editor and Publisher (Architecture) at Routledge. We have never met IRL. You can see Michael's The Cooper Union profile here, and his practice, Young & Ayata, here. The book is linked above. Enjoy! + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + aisforarchitecture.org Apple: podcasts.apple.com Spotify: open.spotify.com Google: podcasts.google.com

In Episode 28 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Professor Harriet Harriss (RIBA, ARB, Assoc. AIA, Ph.D., PFHEA, FRSA), Dean of the School of Architecture at the Pratt Institute, New York. We talk about Harriet's writing, educational practice and academic advocacy, and discuss two of her recent books, Architects After Architecture: Alternative Pathways for Practice, which she co-edited with Rory Hyde and Roberta Marcaccio, published by Routledge in 2021, and Working at the Intersection: Architecture After the Anthropocene: 2022, Volume 4 in RIBA Publishing's Design Studio series, co-edited with Naomi House and published this year. I met Harriet as an undergraduate in Manchester. She was impressive then, and remains so, publishing, teaching, researching, speaking and writing on varied subjects. You can follow Harriet on Twitter, and on LinkedIn. You should watch her recorded lectures too, particularly Harriet's discussion with Patrick Schumacher in 2019, as part of Dezeen Day, and In Session: Design Curricula for Climate Crisis for the Royal College of Art in 2020 with Dr. Delfina Fantini van Ditmar. (There's a lot more, believe, so have a look around.) Enjoy, why don't you. www.aisforarchitecture.org + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick.

In Episode 27 of A is for Architecture, I got to speak with architect Stefanie Rhodes, founder and director of the London-based practice, Gatti Routh Rhodes. Stephanie's practice collaborates with civic and theatre clients, exhibition design, as well as domestic work. In short, her work is a good model for the everyday life of a young architecture practice, and the story Stefanie tells is interesting, insightful and rather inspiring as a consequence. You can find out more about Gatti Routh Rhodes at their website here. Stefanie's LinkedIn page is here. The Bethnal Green Mission Church was reviewed on ArchDaily here, on architecture.com here. There's a fantastic review of the church, of GRR and of Stefanie in the Architectural Review here, from February 2020. Enjoy! + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + aisforarchitecture.org Apple: podcasts.apple.com Spotify: open.spotify.com Google: podcasts.google.com

In Episode 26 of A is for Architecture, I speak with the Glasgow School of Art's Professor Bruce Peter, about themes, buildings, people and ideas gleaned from his 2020 book, Jet Age Hotels and the International Style 1950-1965. It's a wonderful book, and Bruce is a remarkably knowledgeable, entertaining and insightful conversationalist. The topic might seem niche, and away from the thing A is for Architecture has done so far, but it isn't. Have a listen and you'll see... I met Bruce at Glasgow when I got to seem him teach enthralled classes with a verve and energy I could only dream of manifesting, born from a real mastery of his subject. Read the book and listen to the fella. He's worth it. You can get Jet Age Hotels and the International Style 1950 - 1965 here. Bruce can be looked at here, and his Tweets can be read here. You can LinkedIn him here. Enjoy! + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + aisforarchitecture.org Apple: podcasts.apple.com Spotify: open.spotify.com Google: podcasts.google.com

In episode 25 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Albena Yaneva, Professor of Architectural Theory at the Manchester School of Architecture, University of Manchester, about her new book, Latour for Architects, published by Routledge at the end of March. In it, we discuss Albena’s reading and application of the work of the great sociologist, Bruno Latour’s and in turn, his reading of society, particularly his important concept of Actor-Network Theory, and his work’s application to the practice and production of architectural thinking. Latour’s work has great influence on contemporary practice, even if often under-played, particularly as practice life waxes networked and complex. Albena’s elegant and enlightening exposition is a timely interjection, then, perhaps helping architects understand themselves a wee bit better. I was introduced to Albena by Fran Ford, Senior Editor and Publisher (Architecture) for Routledge, who also sent me the book hot off the press. All thanks for that. Albena’s research/ academic profile can be seen here, and she is also available via Twitter. Latour for Architects can be purchased here, and Albena’s great lecture for McGill University - The New Ecology of Architectural Practice: An ANT Perspective on the Effects of Covid-19 – is definitely worth a butcher’s. Enjoy! + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + aisforarchitecture.org Apple: podcasts.apple.com Spotify: open.spotify.com Google: podcasts.google.com

In episode 24 of #aisforarchitecture, I speak with Dean Hawkes, Emeritus Professor of Architectural Design at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University and emeritus fellow of Darwin College, University of Cambridge, about his 2022 book, The Architect and the Academy: Essays on Research and Environment, published by Routledge, and the second edition of his great work, The Environmental Imagination: Technics and Poetics of the Architectural Environment (2019) also by Routledge. We focus on the latter, naturally, and its thoughtful and quietly radical approach to interpreting the icons of modernism and their socio-environmental intelligence, and reflect on the possibilities and function of the academic architect (or the architect in academia…). I was introduced to Dean by his publishers, Routledge although I saw him speak at the Glasgow School of Art in 2014 (a talk you can watch here). Tickets for his forthcoming Daylight Talk, The sun never knew how great it is until it struck the side of a building, can be gotten here. You can see his CV here too. Dean is a wonderful communicator and an inspiring thinker and writer, and I know you’ll enjoy this discussion. Enjoy! + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + aisforarchitecture.org Apple: podcasts.apple.com Spotify: open.spotify.com Google: podcasts.google.com

In Episode 23 of A is for Architecture, I got to speak with Neil Pinder, Head of Product Design and Architecture at Graveney School, Tooting, London. Elected Honorary Fellow of the RIBA this year, Honorary Professor at the Bartlett, UCL, and (STOP PRESS!), Fellow of the RSA, Neil has spent the last 25 plus years developing programmes for advancing design thinking for secondary school education, expanding the discipline’s reach into underrepresented communities and groups, supporting young learners to develop confidence in design and design thinking, and challenging the profession to promote diverse perspectives and values in its practices, education, communication and ethics. Neil is wonderfully inspiring, and very funny. His initiative Home Grown Plus+ is worth exploring, and he can be found here on Twitter and LinkedIn, and via the links below, too. London's Hidden Hero: Neil Pinder from New London Architecture Neil Pinder: Graveney School from Citizen Mag Day 37 – Neil Pinder from London Festival of Architecture Celebrated teacher Neil Pinder will talk about how to make design education more inclusive at Dezeen Day Enjoy! + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + aisforarchitecture.org Apple: podcasts.apple.com Spotify: open.spotify.com Google: podcasts.google.com

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! + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + aisforarchitecture.org Apple: podcasts.apple.com Spotify: open.spotify.com Google: podcasts.google.com

In Episode 21 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Jim Stockard, Lecturer in Urban Planning and Design at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. Jim had a long career as a principal with the Cambridge-based Stockard & Engler & Brigham, as well as serving as an housing advisor to the US government’s Department of Public and Assisted Housing, before joining the GSD. Among other things, Jim curated the Loeb Fellowship for sixteen years. We speak about some ideas from the lecture he gave at the end of his tenure of that - Affordable Housing: It's Just (A) Right, as well as a short piece he wrote for the TEDx blog, Why affordable housing needs to be a right, not a privilege. Enjoy! aisforarchitecture.org ++++++++++++++ Music credits: Bruno Gillick.

In Episode 20 of A is for Architecture, I speak with historian, writer and professor, Alan Powers, about modernist architecture, any new ways we must view that architectural movement, that embraces its multiplicity of realisations, producers and ideas. In architectural education we tend to fetishize the great figures of modernism, leading to an unfortunate narrowing of what modernism was and is. This has been at the expense of other designers operating during the same period, and responding to the same social, cultural, economic and technological forces, but in ways that diverged from the established identity of the movement.   Alan teaches at Kent School of Architecture and Planning, at the London School of Architecture and New York University, and is a trustee of the Twentieth Century Society. We spoke about The Lure of the Impure, published in A Magazine for Friends of RIBA Architecture, and 100 Buildings, 100 Years, published by Batsford and the Twentieth Century Society, and written with Tim Brittain-Catlin and Tom Dycoff. aisforarchitecture.org ++++++++++++++ Music credits: Bruno Gillick.

In Episode 19 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Professor Greg Keeffe of the School of Natural and Built Environment, Queens University Belfast, and currently visiting professor at Cornell, about sustainability, ecology and the city as an organism, and architecture as a tool of renewal and political resistance. The conversation builds on two of Greg’s recent pieces of work – Bin Burger, an exhibit displayed as part of the Design Museum’s recent exhibition, Waste Age: What can design do? , and Born, not Made. Designing the Productive City, written with Rob Roggema, a chapter in Designing Sustainable Cities, edited by Rob Roggema. I met Greg as a student when he taught the bioclimatic architecture unit at Manchester School of Architecture. He was a great teacher, and the fire he had then hasn’t dimmed so much. Sustainability in architecture is still a marginal reality, fixed in a consumeristic model, although the rhetoric has mainstreamed. Greg’s approach is radical, perhaps because it needs to be, in the face of a production system that is at best indifferent to the actual price of architecture. Greg’s QUB profile is here and his LinkedIn one is here. You can listen/ watch Greg talk online/ TU Delft on the Born, not Made chapter here. You can watch him do a TED X talk - Accelerating the decarbonisation of neighbourhoods - here. Greg can also be listened to speaking on the Slugger O’Toole podcast about How the pandemic is changing how we live. Happy listening. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick

In Episode 18 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Professor Ola Uduku, Head of the Liverpool School of Architecture, University of Liverpool. We speak about two of her books, Learning Spaces in Africa (Routledge, 2018) and Africa Beyond the Post-Colonial (Routledge 2017), a volume she co-edited with Alfred Zack Williams. We talk about the impact of modernity on indigenous modes of dwelling in Africa and ways architectural modernization been experienced there, colonialism and modern architecture's awkward relationship to it, and the ownership of modernity, as a paradigm, a project and an architectural expression. I met Ola when she was up in Scotland, our paths crossing on the architectural historiography scene, I think. Her work has become increasingly important to me as an educator, as more of my students investigate the modern architectural heritage and culture of Africa. The two books we spoke about are linked in the text above. Ola's academic profile can be viewed here and her Twitter profile is here. Happy listening! www.aisforarchitecture.org ++++++++++++++ Music credits: Bruno Gillick.

In Episode 17 of A is for Architecture, I speak with architect Professor Richard Brook of the Manchester School of Architecture, and creator and curator of the online archive Mainstream Modern. We talk about Manchester, its renewal and redevelopment in the postwar years, and the strategic, cultural and creative visions that underpinned its shift to a postindustrial city. I met Richard through a mutual friend, Bob Proctor, whilst working as Bob's research assistant on a project about postwar churches. Richard's encyclopaedic knowledge of the context and details of British modernism, particularly in the north of England, opened my eyes to a rich and largely ignored seam of ordinary and everyday architectural modernism, and the hopeful, utopian visions that underpinned it. Mainstream Modern: mainstreammodern.co.uk Manchester School of Architecture: rbrook  Instagram: @mainstream_modern  Happy listening! +++++++++++++++++ Music by Bruno Gillick. www.aisforarchitecture.org/ instagram/ twitter/ facebook

In Episode 16 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Johnny Rodger, Professor of Urban Literature in the Mackintosh School of Architecture at the Glasgow School of Art. We discuss his new book, Key Essays: Mapping the Contemporary in Literature and Culture, published by Routledge in 2021. The written essay has a key role in the education of architects and designers, so understanding its function is a worthwhile endeavour. Johnny addresses this, discussing the essay’s identity as a distinct literary form and its function as a critical practice and academic activity. We also touch on ideas of performativity, the capacity of language to effect change in the world, and the idea of ‘the contemporary’. I worked alongside Johnny when up in Glasgow at the School of Art, at an inflection point it now seems, in that fine place. It was good to have him there then, to teach me how to teach and to give me a foot up, which he did. He is a prolific writer, so seek out his other works, and see him lecture live if you can. For more on Johnny: w. gsa.ac.uk/johnny_rodger w. thedrouth.org Cheers. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick

In Episode 15 of A is for Architecture, I speak with artists and writer Liam Gillick. We start with concrete, move to St Peter’s Seminary, Cardross by Gillespie Kidd and Coia and then sort of let it run, discussing the architectural qualities - spatial and programmatic and critical - of his work. We touch on three pieces Liam has written - Should Be, We Lived and Thought Like Pigs and Why Work? – and talk about the value of art education as an exercise in learning to see. And a lot of other things. liamgillick.info Should Be – Organizational Pathways Restated (2019) We Lived and Thought Like Pigs – Gilles Chatelêt’s Devastating Prescience (2019) Why Work? (2010) Other things: Rouse Visiting Artist Lecture: Liam Gillick (Harvard GSD, 2017) on YouTube. Bio on artnet. +Long And Short Modernities: An Interview With Liam Gillick’ by Allan Gardner (December 1st, 2018) on thequietus.com Enjoy. www.aisforarchitecture.org + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick.

In Episode 14 of A is for Architecture, I spoke with Scottish Architect, Malcolm Fraser, founder and director of Fraser/ Livingstone Architects, based in Edinburgh. We talk about sustainability in the context of culture and place, an important nuance in the face of the bulldozer of one-size-fits-all eco-technic sustainability agendas, elegantly expressed by the nonsense of jet-fuelled COP26. We discuss Malcolm's pieces, Architecture and the Wee Blue Ball and Green Virtues, Green Shoots, and discuss an alternative approach to sustainability which foregrounds people, history and tradition and the accommodation of, or even the promotion of, the intricacies of everyday life, through careful engagement with reality, and judicious uses of good materials. I first met Malcolm when he came to give a lecture at the Glasgow School of Art, one of the last I saw in the old Mackintosh Lecture Theatre there. Sat on the narrow wooden pews in that amazing room, Malcolm, in a kilt, was a bit of a special presence to a sassenach like me. You can watch that here. Another video worth a sticky is A Wee Nation and an Architecture of Belonging. For more on Malcolm's practice: t. @f_l_architects i. @fraser_livingstone_architects/ Enjoy. www.aisforarchitecture.org + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick.

In Episode 13 of A is for Architecture, I speak with John Letherland, urbanist, masterplanner and director of John Letherland Ltd. John was a founding partner of Farrells, having worked alongside Sir Terry Farrell for 35 years, before setting up his own firm. I work alongside John at the Kent School of Architecture & Planning, where until recently, John ran the urban design Masters programme, MAUD. In this episode, we speak about the nature and character of urban design and masterplanning as distinct disciplines, related to – and obviously complimentary to - but fundamentally different from architecture. We touch on urban design’s core functions and how it is enacted, discuss its relationship to community, and the natural, organic processes of development common to non-formal and less formal urban spaces. Of course, we also talk about how it should – but isn’t often – taught. John’s KSAP profile can be seen here and his LinkedIn profile is here. Our conversation was informed by two particular documents, the first an article by David Rudlin called ‘What is it about architects and urbanism?’ which attempts to explain to architects the difference between architecture and urbanism; and the second, the Canterbury Campus Masterplan (‘The Framework Masterplan for the Canterbury campus’) for the University of Kent which John wrote for the University in April 2019, finalised in Oct 2019, particularly Chapter 5. www.aisforarchitecture.org Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/2p8d9t7p Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/3va6a6b3 ++++++++++++++ Music credits: Bruno Gillick.

In this, the twelfth episode of A is for Architecture, I speak with Hana Loftus, co-director of HAT Projects, architect and town planner and Engagement and Communications Lead at the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service and Chair of Creative Colchester. HAT Projects are an Essex-based architecture, design and strategy practice. Hana’s role as planner-architect is rare and valuable, offering specific insights into a process often seen as opaque and arbitrary for design professionals. We speak about this, the whys and wherefores of planning as it intersects with the practice of architecture, and ways the discipline might (or should) open up to enable fairer and more just outcomes. I met Hana many years ago, when we were both students (at rather different schools…) and have been ever impressed by the varied career in architecture, making, building, teaching, speaking, writing, theatre, and now planning she has carved out. Hana’s writing can be read at virtualhana.blogspot and her Twitter is here. Follow this, to hear Hana speak at the Glasgow School of Art in 2014, as part of the Mackintosh School of Architecture’s Friday Lecture series. Happy listening! +++++++++++++++++ Music by Bruno Gillick. www.aisforarchitecture.org/ Instagram/ twitter/ facebook

In Episode 11 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Anne Marie Galmstrup, director of Galmstrup Architects, London, about local identity, the social practice of architectural design, and the tangible and intangible, which should be at the heart of the processes and outputs of the design of good places. I met Anne Marie at the 2018 Venice architecture biennale. I was still director of Baxendale with Lee Ivett at the time, so was either helping make the Scottish collateral project or drinking *coffee*. Anne Marie and I spoke about it all - Freespace, community, identity and participation - themes close to both of our practice - and kept in touch.  Watch Anne Marie's residency 'Time for play' with the V&A , and her project Imaginations Cross Cultures, a non-profit which seeks to foster cross cultural understanding between young people through co-creation.  As ever, thanks for listening. Like, subscribe, follow and share, of course. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Facebook too. Happy listening. www.aisforarchitecture.org + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick

In Episode 10 of A is for Architecture, I speak with the architects and educators Maggie Ma, assistant professor of Architecture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Mark Kingsley, who collectively run the Hong Kong-based not-for-profit architecture practice, Domat. We discuss their work in detail, focusing on the social production of community spaces, particularly for lower-incomed and informal people.  I first met Mark at Sheffield School of Architecture when we both studied in Doina Petrescu's Unit 2, an educational moment which has had a lasting impact on both our careers, orientating us (I think) towards the social capacity and identity of architecture and its production. Through Mark I got to meet Maggie and have watched as their expertise has moved from paper to the real world of practice and enactment.  Domat can be found here: https://www.domat.hk/; Maggie's academic profile is here: http://www.arch.cuhk.edu.hk/person/ma-kit-yi-maggie/ Happy listening. www.aisforarchitecture.org + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick

In Episode 9 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Robert Adam, architect, urban designer, author, and visiting professor of urban design at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, about his work in the fields of classical and traditional design. We discuss his mode of practice, outputs and built work in relation to accepted ideas of architectural and spatial modernism, the value of tradition for architecture and urbanism, and the problem of authenticity in the twenty-first century. I first met Robert in Glasgow, when he came to give a talk for the students. We went to a restaurant beforehand, where the menu was, appropriately, written in a sort-of hybrid neo vernacular Scots patois, which we didn’t understand. I think we both got fried egg on rice. Robert’s practice can be found here and his former one here. He’s on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/classical_man?lang=en-gb. His book, Time for Architecture: On Modernity, Memory and Time in Architecture and Urban Design is available via the publishers; his discussion piece ‘Modernism has become a tradition’, was published in the RIBA Journal (13 February 2020). Enjoy. www.aisforarchitecture.org + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick

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 housing, the communities that make them, and live in them. I was put onto Geraldine by another podcast guest, and so wrote out of the blue to ask if she’d be interested in speaking about the social significance and political character of housing. Gladly, she was both willing and a wonderfully engaging interlocutrice. You can see more about Geraldine and her work via the links above and on LinkedIn. Listen on Apple Podcasts of Spotify. Music by Bruno Gillick, voice by Julian.  Episode image from ASH. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ i. ais4architecture t. AisArchitecture w. aisforarchitecture.org

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. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Music by Bruno Gillick, voice by Julian. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ i. ais4architecture t. AisArchitecture w. aisforarchitecture.org

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 addresses themes relating to the social role of architecture-as-programme, rather than as (just) stuff and space. I met Lee through work at the art school in Glasgow, eventually joining him as a director of Baxendale between 2015 and 2018, working with him on The Happenstance, Scotland’s collaborative architecture, art and design installation at the 2018 Venice architecture biennale. w. baxendale-dco.com t. twitter.com/baxendalestudio i. www.instagram.com/_baxendale

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

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! ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Music credits: Bruno Gillick

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 and possibilities for the profession of architecture – both in practice, but also in architecture schools – and the value and meaning of ‘the other’ for practitioners. I met Bob through his role as an RIBA external examiner for the school of architecture I work at. Bob pointed out that he had contributed a chapter - Concepts of Vernacular Architecture - to The SAGE Handbook of Architectural Theory (2013, Sage Publishing), the principal textbook for my MArch course, Cultural Context. Follow the link in my bio to my website, for Bob and my conversation, or seek it out *A is for Architecture* on Spotify, Apple and Anchor. Enjoy! + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick.