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 (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre)

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Dec 30, 2020 (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) · 54 min read

Ed. In 2018, Mark Burry (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) asked me to contribute to a special edition of Architectural Design journal (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) that he was editing: AD: Urban Futures: Designing the Digitised City (Vol.90, Issue 3) (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre). I've written for AD before - on the tactical urbanism of pop-ups as a form of R&D (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) in 2015; a 2050 version of 'the street as platform' (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) in 2014 - and was delighted to be asked by Mark (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre), someone I've known since my Australia days, and a pioneer in digital architecture (he's perhaps better-known globally, along with Jane Burry (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) and others, for their multi-decade work completing the Sagrada Familia (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre).) Although architecture faces many challenges and opportunities (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre), 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’ (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) and ‘Architects Without Architecture: How Transdisciplinary Studios Reposition for 21st‐Century Challenges’ (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre). 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rate of change, accelerated by Covid-19’s various forms of devastation and disruption, the AD articles feel almost out-of-date already.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 (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre), radical indigenism (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre), virtual environments (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre), hi-tech/lo-tech cultural diversity (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre).The recent collection, Architects after Architecture (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre), 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 (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) for more recent thoughts on those challenges for urbanism, and a deeper investigation of the ‘small pieces, loosely joined’ design pattern (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) discussed here.