A is for Architecture Podcast

By Ambrose GillickArts Design

A is for Architecture Podcast episodes

June 07, 2022 Harriet Harriss: Architecture, intersectionality and the anthropocene
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
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Music credits: Bruno Gillick.

59 min
May 27, 2022 Stefanie Rhodes: Practicing architecture
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!
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Music credits: Bruno Gillick.
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1 hr 6 min
April 28, 2022 Bruce Peter: Aeroplanes, hotels and global architectures
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!
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Music credits: Bruno Gillick.
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aisforarchitecture.org
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1 hr 11 min
April 13, 2022 Albena Yaneva: Bruno Latour, ANT and Architects
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!
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Music credits: Bruno Gillick.
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aisforarchitecture.org
Apple: podcasts.apple.com
Spotify: open.spotify.com
Google: podcasts.google.com
1 hr 7 min
April 06, 2022 Dean Hawkes: Architects, Environments and Imaginations
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!
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Music credits: Bruno Gillick.
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aisforarchitecture.org
Apple: podcasts.apple.com
Spotify: open.spotify.com
Google: podcasts.google.com
1 hr 14 min
March 30, 2022Neil Pinder: Teaching design thinking
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!
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Music credits: Bruno Gillick.
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aisforarchitecture.org
Apple: podcasts.apple.com
Spotify: open.spotify.com
Google: podcasts.google.com
1 hr 13 min
March 22, 2022 Shira de Bourbon Parme: Anthropology and integrated urban development
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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aisforarchitecture.org

Apple: podcasts.apple.com
Spotify: open.spotify.com
Google: podcasts.google.com

1 hr 9 min
March 15, 2022 Jim Stockard: Housing, cohousing and citizenship
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
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Music credits: Bruno Gillick.
1 hr 14 min
March 04, 2022 Alan Powers: Modernism's muddy waters.
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
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Music credits: Bruno Gillick.

1 hr 12 min
February 26, 2022 Greg Keeffe: Environmentalism, biomimicry and sustainable cities
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.
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Music credits: Bruno Gillick
1 hr 18 min

About A is for Architecture Podcast

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Explore the world of architecture with the A is for Architecture Podcast hosted by Ambrose Gillick. Through conversations with designers, scholars and practitioners, Ambrose unpacks the creative and theoretical dimensions of architecture. Whether you're a professional, student, or design enthusiast, the A is for Architecture Podcast offers the best insights into how buildings shape society and society shapes buildings. To keep it free and good, subscribe to the podcast on Patreon.