I’m in as a visiting critic at Hong Kong Univerisity’s end-of-year Thesis Reviews, where I will spend the day with Wes Jones from Los Angeles, and Rice University’s Lars Lerup. A day of fifth-year projects selected following the week’s external examination.
—Auckland
‘Ambient Urbanism’
‘Ambient Urbanism: The Continuous Surfaces of the Contemporary City’. This talk examines the continuous informational city that has grown out of modernism’s reinvention of the city as a functional extension of architectural ideas; As Le Corbusier once wrote, ‘A town is only a tool’. This lecture, presented as a keynote session of the 2008 New […]
—13 May, 2008
Auckland, New Zealand
Brett is in Auckland for two talks, participation in roundtable panel discussions on architecture, design research paradigms & discourses, and a closing keynote presentation at the culmination of this year’s New Zealand Institute for Architecture’s convention.
—Auckland
‘Design v. Research’
‘Design vs. Research: Collaboration, Conspiracies & Competition’. A presentation of contemporary architectural and design cultures that, during the past decade, have grown up around new design systems, technologies and multi-disciplinary work environments. Seeking to look past the euphoria of recent digital discourses, this talk will examine the ways in which the electrification and distribution of […]
—AA Lecture Hall
’Pavilions & Prototyping’
‘On Learning: Revisiting the AADRL Pavilion’ Roundtable Discussion. I introduced an afternoon roundtable discussion that brought together a half-dozen of the main participants who contributed to this year’s design, development and construction of the DRL Pavilion; a 50-ton assemblage of concrete and steel currently installed in Bedford Square. Participants included Hanif Kara and his team […]
—AA 1st Year Studio
‘Hotels & Other Questions’
‘What is a Hotel, and Four other (More Interesting) Questions. Presented in the AA’s First Year studio, a short (and pretty random) survey of the euphoric role that travel, tourism and hotels have played in the projects and personalities of modern architecture. (As Le Corbusier once wrote, the only place he could ever really think, […]
—Basle
‘Machines and Ornament’
‘Cutting, Bending and Stacking by Code: Machines and Ornament in Architecture’ is an essay introducing ‘The New Materialists’ section of ‘Re-Sampling Ornament’, an exhibition catalogue accompanying an upcoming exhibition at the Swiss Architecture Musueum, in Basle. The essay relates the work of three contemporary architects that make extensive use of robots, laser cutting and other […]
—15 May, 2008
London
‘Between Schools and Outer Space’ is the working title of an hour-long interview of Brett made yesterday, by Kaei Kim for the Korean Broadcasting Station. Part of an upcoming programme on architecture and the arts, Kim was interested in understanding how the AA School organises its full-time programmes of study; how it finds and selects […]
—15 May, 2008
AA London
An evening in conversation with the incomarable David Greene, co-founder (and house poet) of Archigram, and lasting tutor and shaper of contemporary architectural culture. An evening discussion in the AA Lecture Hall with David, Curator of the current exhibition, Samantha Hardingham, Zak Kyes and others.
—13 May, 2008
Mayfair, London
Under Chatham House Rules, a working lunch and free-flowing discussion on the topic of the UK Government’s support for creative industries, with the Rt. Honorable MP and UK Minister of Arts & Culture, Margaret Howell.