Register - Architecture & Landscape

In this episode Kate Ivinson and Dan Ryder-Cook both interview the London architect Amin Taha.

Amin’s work, and that of the practice he established (Groupwork) is heavily invested in exploring the potentials for contemporary technology to allow a re-engagement with materiality, ornament and civic expression - particularly in the making of facades.

This approach, at once playful and rigorous, has resulted in work which is beautifully detailed, robustly made and historically situated.

In this conversation Amin teases out the underlying ideas of the practice, including the way that memory, and misremembering, have always been the way our cities have been made - placing his work in this tradition of continuity.

Kate and Dan were both students of the course when they made this interview, and they bring an incisive lens on the work which makes for enjoyable listening.

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Credits

Register is the Reseach Group for the Departmetn of Architecture & landscape. This episode was made in collaboration with the students architecture society K.Arch

Head of Department: Mary Johnson

Producer: Kate Ivinson / Dan Ryder-Cook

Interviewer: Kate Ivinson / Dan Ryder-Cook

Editor: Andrew Clancy

Music: Poddington Bear - Rainbow Architecture

In this episode Andrew Clancy interviews Edwin Heathcote, the critic and writer.

Edwin is the architecture critic for the FT, and an author of several books as well as the curator of an online resource celebrating the value of the written word in architecture (Reading Design).

In this conversation we tease out the particular pressures on critics and discuss whether the golden age of architecture criticism may have passed.

https://www.readingdesign.org/

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Credits:

Register is the Research Centre in the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London kingstonarchitecture.london

Head of Department: Mary Johnson

Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy

Register: Christoph Lueder; Matt Wells; Matt Phillips

Interviewer: Andrew Clancy and Matt Phillips

Editor: Andrew Clancy

Music: Poddington Bear - Rainbow Architecture

In this interview Andrew Clancy and Judi Farren Bradley interview Julian HARRAP.

Julian is arguably the most distinguished conservation architect working in Europe today. In the work he completed with David Chipperfield on the Neues Museum he opened up a conversation about memory, authenticity and the abiding meaning of architecture in a highly nuanced manner. This work is of interest far beyond conservation circles of course, and I think it fair to say that this building has been one of the key works of the last 20 years in shaping the culture of architecture on our continent. Our contemporary understanding of bricolage, fragment and inflection are all wrapped up and tested in various ways in this building.

There is a radicality here, one which is perhaps less immediately evident (but no less present) in other projects by Julian and in this conversation he takes us through the challenge of conservation - which in his view is never a simple dogmatic agenda, but another layer of architectural thinking.

Www.julianharraparchitects.co.uk

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Credits:

Register is the Research Centre in the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London kingstonarchitecture.london

Head of Department: Mary Johnson

Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy

Register: Christoph Lueder; Matt Wells; Matt Phillips

Interviewer: Andrew Clancy and Matt Phillips

Editor: Andrew Clancy

Music: Poddington Bear - Rainbow Architecture

In this episode Andrew Clancy and Matt Phillips interview Prof Elly Mosayebi

The practice she runs with her partners (Ron Edelaar and Christin Idebitzin) works from a deep understanding of the plan as a source of invention in the making of beautifully resolved housing.

By a first principle interrogation of inhabitation and occupation they can arrive at plans which frequently eschew conventional geometries - to make characterful, resonant, architecture which is deeply human, gently inhabitable and yet steeped in a deep architectural knowledge.

This is a rich, complex architecture - one which validates the discipline of architecture in its fullest sense - showing how a deep understanding of the history of architecture, and care in its making can make genuinely beautiful places for people to live.

Elly is a professor in the ETH and there is a strong link between the teaching and research she conducts there with her students and the evolving nature of her practice. In this conversation we talk about this, and how she sees this developing in the future.

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Credits:

Registegr is the Research Centre in the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London kingstonarchitecture.london

Head of Department: Mary Johnson

Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy

Register: Christoph Lueder; Matt Wells; Matt Phillips

Interviewer: Andrew Clancy and Matt Phillips

Editor: Andrew Clancy

Music: Poddington Bear - Rainbow Architecture

In this podcast Mary Vaughan Johnson and Andrew Clancy interview Niall Hobhouse of Drawing Matter.

Niall and his collection are such a valuable and important part of the contemporary architectural scene it is difficult to imagine it without this presence. Yet it is a rare and fragile thing. It is by no means obvious that a collection could be made which celebrates the doubts of creative production, and which reiterates the changing yet abiding value of the drawing as a site of critical enquiry. In the archives at shatwell, and in the many publications, exhibitions and educational programmes run by the archive there is a clear voice - one which is scholarly and playful, one that understands the collection as a living engine of thinking.

Next week you are all welcome to join us in Kingston for the Frascari Symposium - which we are hosting here on the 27th and 28th July 2019. You are all welcome to join us as we explore the secret lives of drawings and models. http://kingstonarchitecture.london/frascari-symposium-iv-the-secret-lives-of-architectural-drawings-and-models-kingston-architecture-and-landscape-june-2019/

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Credits:

Registegr is the Research Centre in the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London kingstonarchitecture.london

Head of Department: Mary Johnson

Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy

Register: Christoph Lueder; Matt Wells; Matt Philips

Interviewer: Andrew Clancy and Mary Johnson

Editor: Andrew Clancy

Music: Poddington Bear - Rainbow Architecture

In this episode Andrew Clancy interviews Fergus and Edmund of Feilden Fowles

Their practice is one which foregrounds craft, and the formal histories of the language of industrial and agricultural structures as a site for discovery and invention. Their hands on approach is probably most celebrated in their own studio, located as part of a campus of structures for Waterloo city farm. Despite the contingencies of budget (the client being a charity) and the need for the buildings to be rapidly designed, made (and potentially moved in time) they worked with and elemental architecture and frugal materials to make a wonderfully considered series of buildings and spaces.

This nimbless means that their investment in the details does not preclude larger work, and indeed they are working with contemporary industrial sites - such as their recently completed food production site in Somerset. Here they work with the language of contemporary industrial structures, but adjust these by addition, developing a figurative exterior linked to subtly tuned interiors.

The interview goes through the evolution of their practice, and their views on architecture and education today.

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Credits:

Register is the Research Centre in the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London kingstonarchitecture.london

Head of Department: Mary Johnson

Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy

Register: Christoph Lueder; Matt Wells; Matt Philips

Interviewer: Andrew Clancy

Editor: Andrew Clancy

Music: Poddington Bear - Rainbow Architecture

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Before introducing this episode a quick mention of the free summer school for pre A- level students we run each summer with our partners. I talk a bit about this in the introduction - if you know anyone who might be interested there is more information here. http://kingstonarchitecture.london/architectural-drawing-summer-school-24-29-august-2019/

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In this episode Andrew Clancy interviews Caroline Voet.

Caroline joins us from Belgium where she works as an architect and an academic. She is rare, in that she excels in both practice and thinking about practice. The work of her practice, (Voet en de Brabandere, where she works in partnership with Leen de Brabandere) has a rigour in both formal and tectonic investigations - making buildings and interiors which are elegently conceived and beautifully resolved with their contexts. - http://www.voetendebrabandere.be

As an academic Caroline is perhaps best known for her wonderful book (A House for the Mind) about the work of the architect Dom Hans Van der Lann, most particularly his seminal Rosenberg Abbey. This building is a continual touchstone for us here in Kingston, and Caroline’s research reveals its place in the thinking of its architect, and its abiding value as a building to draw lessons from today. - https://www.domusweb.it/en/architecture/2017/10/09/a-house-for-the-mind-explores-the-world-surrounding-the-philosophy-of-the-dutch-architect-monk-dom-hans-van-der-laan.html

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Credits:

Register is the Research Centre in the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London kingstonarchitecture.london

Head of Department: Mary Johnson

Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy

Register: Christoph Lueder; Matt Wells; Matt Philips

Interviewer: Andrew Clancy

Editor: Andrew Clancy

Music: Poddington Bear - Rainbow Architecture

In this episode Andrew Clancy interviews Ryan Kennihan.

Ryan is an architect, based in Dublin, and is leader of the thesis year in TU Dublin (formerly DIT Dublin School of Architecture) there.

His practice is concerned with making buildings which act in continuity with typologies, forms and materials found in their physical context. These are translated through engagement with contemporary tectonics to make an expressive architecture in which structure, weathering and craft are considered and carefully calibrated.

In this conversation we talk through his journey to this point, and the ideas fueling his practice today.

http://www.rwka.com

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Credits:

Register is the Research Centre in the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London http://kingstonarchitecture.london

Head of Department: Mary Johnson

Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy

Register: Christoph Lueder; Matt Wells; Matt Philips

Interviewer: Andrew Clancy

Editor: Andrew Clancy

Music: Poddington Bear - Rainbow Architecture

In this episode Nana Biamah Ofasu interviews Marius Grootveld. Marius is a partner, along with Jantje Engels of the practice Veldwerk. Established in 2015, their practice is part of a broader movement in Flanders of practices interested in making work in weaving narratives from the contexts they are asked to make work.

Representation, typology and precedent act as a site for investigation, and discovery.

Restlessly passionate about architecture in its widest sense Marius also pursues this interest in is work as an educator and curator. In this work he both seeks to provoke a discourse, and to shine a light on lesser known voices in our discipline - be they practicing today or a precedent from many centuries ago.

http://mariusgrootveld.nl

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Credits:

Register is the Research Centre in the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London http://kingstonarchitecture.london

Head of Department: Mary Johnson

Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy

Register: Christoph Lueder; Matt Wells; Matt Philips

Interviewer: Nana Biamah Ofasu

Editor: Andrew Clancy

In this episode Ellis Woodman interviews Timothy Smith and Jonathan Taylor of Smith Taylor Architects.

Ellis is director of the architecture foundation, and a valued thinker and writer about architecture.

Jonathan and Timothy established their practice in 2010. In their practice and their teaching they investigate classicism, and its potential as a living language of architecture. They engage with this way of thinking, not through nostalgia or sentimentality, but with criticality. This is unusual among contemporary classicists, many of whom seek to make perfected classical fragments, solely by engagement with the classical treatises, and an elitist approach to brief and budget. This hermeticism misses the point that architecture gains its value by abrasion against the forces which bring it into being and shape it, be they technical, economic, legislative etc. It is in this friction between idealised and realisable that a conversation emerges that allows architecture to act as a carrier of cultural knowledge, and allow with an empathetic connection with individuals, and even of society more generally.

In the work of Smith Taylor we see this conversation at work. Here classism is a living, malleable fabric, one informed as much by contemporary thoughts as by adherence to the orders. In writing this I am thinking of the columns, (as much brick piers as classical order) on a modest rear garden extension, the cleverly tuned plan of a competition entry for a chapel in Dublin or the exuberant modelled soffits which they use in many projects. Here the nature of contemporary construction allows (indeed requires) an engagement with the classical language in a new way.

http://www.smithandtaylorllp.com/index.php/site

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Credits:

Register is the Research Centre in the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London http://kingstonarchitecture.london

Head of Department: Mary Johnson

Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy

Register: Christoph Lueder; Matt Wells; Matt Philips

Interviewer: Andrew Clancy

Editor: Andrew Clancy