Register - Architecture & Landscape

In this episode we are joined by Prof Hugh Campbell

Hugh is a writer, a curator and an educator. His research examines the the relationship between photography, architecture and built space and the visual culture of cities.

His recent publications include the edited volume Architecture 1600- 2000, volume 4 of the RIAI/Yale UP production Art and Architecture of Ireland (2014); a special issue of Architecture and Culture on Architecture and Film, edited with Igea Troiani. Forthcoming are an edited book on Architecture Filmmaking (also with Igea Troiani) to be published by Intellect in 2018, and a book Space Framed: Architecture, Photography and Built Space, to be published by Lund Humphries in early 2019, which will built upon a sequence of papers and book chapters on this theme.

With Nathalie Weadick, he was curator of Ireland's pavilion at the 2008 Venice Biennale. He is also co-curator, with Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of the ‘Close Encouter’ exhibition in the 2018 Venice Biennale.

https://people.ucd.ie/hugh.campbell

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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

In this episode Bushra Mohamed interviews Jaume Mayol who is a partner in TEd’A Arquitectos along with Irene Perez.

Their practice, based in Mallorca is a territorial one, seeking to make its architecture from the lessons in the vernacular of the areas they build - both in the tectonics found there, and in the formal arrangements of elements. This sensibility is married to ideas which emerge from the canon, to produce a hybridity of grounded ideas rigorously resolved. A clear sophistication in their understanding of typology results in an acute refinement in how they consider the internal arrangements and formal disposition of their works.

Perhaps more simply stated their plans are exquisite - clearly a central fascination of the practice. Here elements are nested, framed or juxtaposed such that misalignments or tensions emerge in how programmes and the building fabric cohere.

Structural elements are frequently deployed as characters occupying the spaces that they make, less an ordering device than an empathetic presence.

Based in Mallorca this is not the limit of their definition of their territory. They have concentrated on competitions, mainly in Switzerland. Here their territoriality is disposed as a reading of the swiss context. In their peripheral location, their connection to a territory, and their ability to use this not a a limit but as a liberation to engage with other places as a wonderful example of the contemporary moment in European architecture.

http://tedaarquitectes.com

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Credits:

Register is brought to you by 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

Interviewer: Bushra Mohamed

Editor: Andrew Clancy

In this episode Bruno and Sylvester and Diego Calderon interview Manuel Rocha de Aires Mateus.

His practice, which he established with his brother in Lisbon in 1988 represents another pole of the deep architectural culture of Portugal. In contrast with the work of the Porto School Lisbon architects engage with more abstracted reading of type and materiality.

Aires Matues are among the best known proponents of this way of thinking. Externally their buildings tend to the monolithic, with a language of eroded forms. There is a calibrated conversation with gravity here, and with mass lightly suspended, or tautly drawn on its surface with windows and other detailing. Internally the landscapes are rich, even sculptural.

Manuel is a Professor in the Accademia di Archittetura in Mendrisio, a school which shares our agenda in prioritising the practitioner and the built work in thinking about our discipline.

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Credits:

Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London http://kingstonarchitecture.london

Head of Department: Mary Johnson

Producer: Andrew Clancy / Laura Evans

Interviewer: Bruno Silvestre & Diego Calderon

Editor: Andrew Clancy

In this episode Matt Wells interviews Dingle Price and Alex Gore of Pricegore Architects.

Their practice, now in its fifth year, is among the more compelling recent arrivals in the UK. Much of the work of a young practice inevitably involves situations rife with uncertainty, contingency and the need to use minimal means. In this context it is remarkable that the core concerns of the practice are already so clearly and consistently established and interrogated. In common with many of their peers Pricegore are invested in a culture of continuity and historically sited work, but with their own particular take, based on a shared education incorporating architecture, furniture and landscape design.

In their work discrete elements such as Roof, Window, Wall, Stairs etc are considered both singularly and as a society of elements which make a building. There is a care taken in how each might possess a characterful fragmentary stance, and yet sit as ease in the complex whole that is the finished work. Put simply the primary scale of their enquiry is directed not with typology (as in building arrangement and form) but with archetype. This emphasis on the intimate over the urban does not preclude an interest in scale or public facing work, but rather situates these concerns in the context of our fragmented age.

http://pricegore.co.uk

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Credits:

Register is brought to you by 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

Interviewer: Matt Wells

Editor: Andrew Clancy

In this episode Andrew Clancy interviews Floris de Bruyn, one of three partners in the Belgian practice GAFPA.

GAFPA's is concerned with a careful unpicking of the contexts in which their buildings are situated and in they way that they are then made. This contextual read does not extend only to the physical site, but to todays vernacular of mass produced standardised building components. This is all governed by an underlying connection with the deep architectural currents of type and architype, and in a careful calibration of proportion, rhythm and order. GAFPA make spaces and forms which sit in a careful equilibrium - beautiful in its consideration and realisation. While the construction is expressive of its assembly, articulated and layered.

http://www.gafpa.net

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Credits:

Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London

www.kingston.ac.uk/faculties/kings…-and-landscape/

Head of Department: Mary Johnson

Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy

Interviewer: Andrew Clancy

Audio: Madoka Ellis

In this episode Andrew Clancy interviews Dr Cat Rossi.

Cat is a design historian, with a socially and politically engaged approach to researching and communicating design history. Consistently provocative, insightful and nimble in her ability to weave multiple narratives, Cats work allows new light to be cast on the areas she explores. In this conversation she takes us us on a lyrical tour of the design history of Nightclubs, and their relationship to broader architectural currents, with particular emphasis on the post-war Italian radical tradition (Gruppo 9999; Superstudio et al).

We also talk about the exhibition she is co-curating, and which opens in the Vitra Design Museum on 17 March 2018. This exhibition, entitled 'Nightfever' is the first comprehensive study of nightclub design, and will be travelling to the UK at some future date. https://www.design-museum.de/en/exhibitions/detailpages/night-fever-designing-club-culture-1960-today.html

http://www.kingston.ac.uk/staff/profile/dr-catharine-rossi-267/

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Credits:

Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London

www.kingston.ac.uk/faculties/kings…-and-landscape/

Head of Department: Eleanor Suess

Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy

Interviewer: Andrew Clancy

Audio: Madoka Ellis

In this episode Hugh Strange interviews Beate Holmebakk of Mathey Kula Architects to speak about her work, and that of her practice.

Beate is a leading figure in Norwegian architectural practice and education. Her practice has made a singular position with works that seek to establish a resonant formal presence within the remarkable landscapes in which they are situated. In considering the lineage for this work it comes as no surprise that Beate studied with Sverre Fehn and John Hejduk among others.

Harnessing pragmatic concerns (such as the consideration of snow melt and rain water on a roof form, or of the organisational requirements of a hydro electric plant) Manthey Kula find space for expression sited within the particular logics of each site and brief. The manner in which they distill this into the finished work is remarkable, through a process invested in the power of abstraction while never losing sight of the vitality of the material presence of the finished work.

Her buildings are not mute, but are protagonists in their contexts. They possess a poise, an alertness to where they are. Perhaps they ask of us a similar alertness - they are not interested in us being aware of the building alone, but of the building in relation to where it is. They invite us to see anew.

http://www.mantheykula.no

Hugh Strange is an architect here in London, and runs a unit in our M.Arch programme http://www.hughstrange.com

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Credits:

Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London

www.kingston.ac.uk/faculties/kings…-and-landscape/

Head of Department: Eleanor Suess

Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy

Interviewer: Hugh Strange

Audio: Madoka Ellis

In this episode Aoife Donnelly interviews Marcus Donaghy and Will Dimond of Donaghy Dimond Architects.

Donaghy Dimonds work is characterised by robust, elemental massing which is then inhabited and tuned with a meticulous level of attention to the details of how it is made. They appear to be constantly seeking opportunities where the matter of the building can be tuned to support inhabitation - be it in how a doorway might be a good place to sit in the sun, or in how a window in a classroom relates to a tree . These moments are folded throughout the projects, producing a density of consideration which does not overwhelm, but rather sits at ease with the otherwise direct (elemental, typological) strategy as a whole. This is probably best exemplified by their recent Inchicore School project, which was recently awarded the AAI Downes Medal (The highest architectural award in Ireland).

http://www.donaghydimond.ie

Aoife Donnelly, our interviewer, is an architect in practice and also is a senior lecturer in architecture. She leads our First Year and a studio unit in second year. http://www.kingston.ac.uk/staff/profile/ms-aoife-donnelly-498/

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Credits:

Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London

www.kingston.ac.uk/faculties/kings…-and-landscape/

Head of Department: Eleanor Suess

Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy

Interviewer: Aoife Donnelly

Audio: Madoka Ellis

In this episode Andrew Clancy interviews Job Floris, a partner with Sandor Naus in Monadnock Architects, a practice based in Rotterdam. Their buildings possesses a formal intensity which is leavened with careful attention to their materiality. Their buildings sit at ease with their place in the living tradition of European architecture and yet speak of our current time, and the ambiguities of contemporary tectonics. In their practice the history of architecture is seen as a place for invention, a place to dream using the tools of our age. Their buildings possess the same peculiar familiarity of their drawings, a sense of something seen before and yet entirely new. A sense of delicacy and simultaneous formal heft.

This takes great skill and careful balance which can be easily overlooked. If we examine how for example they treat brickwork in two projects (Atlas and Nieuw Bergen) we see in one (Atlas) how the joints are manipulated to offset the purity of the skin, giving a textural reading which changes in our relationship with the building while in the other the entire surface of the brick is treated to allow this civic structure read almost as a theatrical stage set to the town it addresses. The detail and the whole are set in a careful dance from which the overall character of the building emerges.

In this conversation we try to capture the breadth of Jobs interests and background, and the forces which have informed how he and his practice think about architecture.

Job teaches in Rotterdam, where he co-ordinates the Masters of Architecture there.

http://monadnock.nl/en

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Credits:

Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London

https://www.kingston.ac.uk/faculties/kingston-school-of-art/study/architecture-and-landscape/

Head of Department: Eleanor Suess

Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy

Interviewer: Andrew Clancy

Audio: Madoka Ellis

In this episode Andrew Clancy interviews the architect and educator Tom de Paor.

Tom graduated from UCD in 1991, and established his practice that same year. Since this time he has cut a singular path, establishing a clear position through work which seeks to communicate spatially and in detail regardless of programme or location. In the work process narrative, reference, and material are frequently interwoven and infected by sensitivity to context, the material experience of construction and light.

Underpinned by a conviction in the creative design process the built projects illustrate a concern with perception, construction and tradition. Projects such as the N3 pavilion for the 1999 Venice Biennale capture this attitude in its most essential and pure form, but it is found no less in other works which range from infrastructure, to public and domestic spaces.

This diversity of scope and type of work is captured by the practices current workload which includes completing a remarkable cinema in Galway (Picture Palas), an ongoing project to transform and a farmyard landscape near Greystones (Wyngates), and the design of glassware and other objects.

Our conversation covers a lot of ground, from the value of the crit, to the nature of design process, and the perplexing mystery of Siza's expansion joints.

Tom teaches in the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

www.depaor.com/

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Credits:

Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at Kingston University.

fada.kingston.ac.uk/al/

Head of Department: Eleanor Suess

Register Editor: Timothy Smith

Interviewer: Andrew Clancy

Audio: Justin Howard