rchitects without architecture

Emerging models for a different kind of architecture due to different kinds of technology: transdisciplinary studios for 21st‐century challenges and ‘small pieces loosely-joined’ forms of urbanism

Dan Hill (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

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Dec 30, 2020 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) · 54 min read

Ed. In 2018, Mark Burry (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) asked me to contribute to a special edition of Architectural Design journal (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) that he was editing: AD: Urban Futures: Designing the Digitised City (Vol.90, Issue 3) (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). I've written for AD before - on the tactical urbanism of pop-ups as a form of R&D (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) in 2015; a 2050 version of 'the street as platform' (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) in 2014 - and was delighted to be asked by Mark (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), someone I've known since my Australia days, and a pioneer in digital architecture (he's perhaps better-known globally, along with Jane Burry (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) and others, for their multi-decade work completing the Sagrada Familia (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).) Although architecture faces many challenges and opportunities (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), this piece had to focus on the urban questions posed by tech. Familiar themes are presented — cooperative blocks, participatory platforms, strategic design, libraries, streets, mobility etc. Please forgive any repetition, as I tend to worry away at a few core themes across several contemporaneous pieces, each framed slightly differently. Writing is like sketching, in this sense.I wrote one piece, and then split it in two for the journal: ‘Small Pieces Loosely Joined: Practices for Super‐local Participative Urbanism’ (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) and ‘Architects Without Architecture: How Transdisciplinary Studios Reposition for 21st‐Century Challenges’ (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). What follows below is the original mix, thoroughly re-edited. Given the recent rate of change, accelerated by Covid-19’s various forms of devastation and disruption, the AD articles feel almost out-of-date already. Certainly my list of studios could be twice as long, and more diverse, emphasising other practices, particularly around nature-based technologies (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), radical indigenism (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), virtual environments (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), hi-tech/lo-tech cultural diversity (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).The recent collection, Architects after Architecture (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), does a great job of collating many of the most interesting contemporary practices in that respect. Other aspects of the pieces seem to hold up well to current events, further revealing that Covid-19 is simply underlining existing trends, exposing latent stresses. Do read the Slowdown Papers (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) for more recent thoughts on those challenges for urbanism, and a deeper investigation of the ‘small pieces, loosely joined’ design pattern (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) discussed here.