A is for Architecture Podcast

• Alva Gotby: Other means of dwelling.

  In this new episode of the A is for Architecture Podcast, writer and organiser, Alva Gotby, discusses her recent latest book, Feeling at Home: Transforming the Politics of Housing, published by Verso in January this year.Feeling at Home is rooted in Marxist feminism, and approaches housing as more-than-shelter, but rather as a key site for reproducing labour power under capitalism, perpetuating all the inequalities. Alva extends this critique, proposing what is called family abolitionism, arguing for the collectivisation of domestic life the better to dismantle the nuclear family as a capitalist institution. But Alva isn’t also pleading for nostalgia and a return to the paternalistic state but proposes instead collective alternatives that prioritize marginalised people and ecological sustainability.How’d you like them apples?Alva is on (but not much on) Instagram and X, and the book is linked above. Alva is in various places online discussing this book, and her previous one, They Call It Love: The Politics of Emotional Life.+Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick 

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• Piers Taylor: Building in place.

  The A is for Architecture Podcast’s latest episode is a discussion with the architect, writer, teacher and broadcaster, Piers Taylor. It is Piers’ second time on the show, but rather than his practice, this time we discuss his freshly minted book, Learning from the Local: Designing responsively for people, climate and culture, published by RIBA Publishing last month.In Learning from the Local, Piers presents global examples of low-carbon, context-responsive architecture. In arguing for a post-global architecture, examining geology, waste, ecology, self-build and community engagement, the book proposes a sort-of vernacular. We talk this, Oz, practice, good practice and a very elegant proposal for what Piers calls restless innovation. Quieten down why don’t you and have a solid listen.Piers is Professor of Knowledge Exchange in Architecture at UWE and director of Invisible Studio, (which posts on Instagram), and he’s so all over the internet he literally has a Wikipedia page. The book is linked above.+Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick Image credit: The Rural Studio (Haybale House) by Timothy Hursley.  

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• Jeana Ripple: Architecture, materials, technology and equity.

  In the latest episode of the A is for Architecture Podcast Jeana Ripple, Chair and Vincent & Eleanor Shea Professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia, joined me to discuss her recent book, Type V City: Codifying Material Inequity in Urban America, published by the University of Texas Press in August this year. In Type V city, Jeana describes how building codes or regulations in the USA have shaped urban landscapes. Specifically, Jeana explores how the construction of light, combustible wood-frame buildings – known as Type V construction - have codified inequities in social, economic, environmental and health outcomes for residents. We discuss this idea – the entrenchment of ethics in the materials of building making – but also that where the technology is restricted, in the exacerbation of labour inequalities. Materials, huh? Who’d have thought it? Well, you will, if you listen to (and read) Jeana.The book is linked above. Jenna can be found at work and on LinkedIn.+Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick 

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• Patrick Lynn Rivers & Kai Wood Mah: Situated practices.

  The A is for Architecture Podcast’s newest episode is a conversation with North American scholars, social scientist Patrick Lynn Rivers and design historian Kai Wood Mah, about their book, Situated Practices in Architecture and Politics, published by Dalhousie Architectural Press in 2024.In our conversation, Patrick and Kai speak of the importance of situated learning and practice, which involves architects engaging with communities to co-create knowledge as a mode not just of transforming spaces and making things, but as an ethnographic means of seeing things through the eyes of communities. Situated practices, they argue, force a necessary politicisation of design thinking, and are as such essential for architects to adapt to post-colonial challenges and contribute to global change.Patrick is professor at SAIC in Chicago, has a personal website here, and can be found on LinkedIn and Insta. Kai is Associate Professor in the McEwan School of Architecture at the Laurentian University, Canada and also has a website. Both Patrick and Kai co-direct the design research practice a.field. The book is linked above.Much to ponder, so little time. Get to it!+Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick Image credit: Pilgrimage to Biete Gabriel-Rufael by Robert Wilson. 

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• Hans van der Heijden: A rationalist architecture.

  In the latest episode of the A is for Architecture Podcast Amsterdam-based architect Hans van der Heijden discuss themes of his design work and writing. Founder of Hans van der Heijden Architects, a practice which track context through deep research realised in, as I see it, a sort-of fitting architecture.Hans and I connected over a mutual interest in the pursuit of the/ a common city. Our conversation centres on Hans’ book, The Residential Palazzo (Het woonpalazzo) in Design Research, Education and Practice, published this year by HvdHA which, along with the built work Hans speaks of, raises important questions. How must we build, given all the things, to accommodate the lineage of a common culture and place? And why do we still, even after all, fail to do so? What drives contemporary urban incoherence? And how might we arrest this? The answer, of course, is study, observation, seeing and hearing. It’s an architecture Hans proposes that is ground in attentiveness and, I would say, generosity. Through the careful study of the city and its parts, and by designing in concord with the city’s fabric as is, and the people who actually live and work there, architects can, in Hans’ words, ‘develop a sort of reservoir of a priori knowledge which […] lends you a kind of professional integrity.’Strong medicine indeed.Hans van der Heijden Architects are to be found here. Hans is on Instagram here.  +Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick 

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