ASD Real Time

A review of  Charles Barclay’s lecture in the Forum, 2 April 2009, 6.30pm
Charles Barclay’s presentation of his practice’s competition-winning astronomical observatory, which was completed a year ago high up in the wilds of Northumbria (away from the light pollution which effects much of the night sky of Britain), revealed a practice of serious intent whose [...]

A ’space of difference’ or, to be more precise, an ‘other space’ is the idea that literally describes the concept that names David Kohn Architects’ project entry for the Arts Space of the Future competition in 2008 – Heterotopia. Both otherness and difference imply distance; subjectively from the self, collectively from culture, spatially from the [...]

In a seminal work on the physical and imaginary functions of the skin (Le moi-peau, 1985), French psychologist Didier Anzieu suggested that Western thought is deceived by the idea that appearances, the outer limit of things, conceal an essence within. In physics, this is documented by our obsession with ever smaller units of matter. Similarly, [...]

A reviewew of Rut Blees Luxemburg, Commonsensual, 20 November 2008, Forum

The lights are already out, and the projected image arrests you immediately. A scattering of spots, shimmer back under a golden light. The ambiguousness of what they are intrigues, and plays with your perceptions. Could it be distant lights out of focus on a rainy night [...]

A reviewew of Rut Blees Luxemburg, Commonsensual, 20 November 2008, Forum
Rut Blees Luxemburg seized upon the lecture at Spring House as an opportunity to explore and reflect upon a forthcoming monograph of her work over the last fifteen years. The collection explores a series of thematic and formal preoccupations that have evolved in her work [...]

A review of the Waugh Thistleton Architects lecture in the Forum, 23 October 2008
This Thursday’s talk was about ideas. Not glamorous Big Ideas, but the ones that should be at the heart of any architectural practice concerned with its responsibility towards society and the environment. Unfortunately there are few practices that approach the implementation of [...]

First thank you to all of you who made last years summer show a success. The show was very well reviewed and seemed to capture the spirit of the Department. Also congratulations to Anna Page who was one of the BD class of 2008 and Stef Rhodes who won the RIBA Boyd Auger research award [...]

A critical debate has been out there for a while, usually posed under the sign of opposition: should architecture respond to contextualized differences or should design practice address and communicate the values of universal rationality? To put it differently: how design can fill the gap in-between the local and the global?
Last week at Spring House, [...]

And out there, there are two worlds; one in need of a social architecture which is sensitive and contextual, and another world edging on the virtualisation of culture, to which architecture must reach in order to reinstate a new material and sensual space. Roughly speaking, the national pavilions on the 11th International Architecture Exhibition state [...]

I have a problem with the end-of-year shows. By temperament I want to see everything, and divine some kind of order in the detail before I can be confident that I understand it. The shows don’t – can’t – allow this. Despite all efforts made to structure an exhibition, to edit and elucidate, the quantity [...]