Marking thirty years since the Architecture Foundation was established in 1991, a new series of films reflect on the people, projects and policy that have shaped the architectural landscape over the past thirty years.
Each episode is guest presented by a new generation of practitioners, writers and historians; reflecting on landmark architectural projects in the U.K. and beyond. From BedZed to the Young Vic, Kirchner Museum to Peckham Library, each film will build a picture of the unique social-economic and political factors at play through interviews with the architects, community groups, clients and policy makers involved at each step.
Episode 01
Le Medi: exploring Geurst & Schulze's housing for a North African community with Bushra Mohamed
Made up of 93 new houses, Le Medi, is named for its notion of the middle, or the mediator. Designed by Dutch practice Geurst & Schulze for a predominantly north African community living in an outer district of Rotterdam, the development is a unique example of how a housing scheme in northern Europe can take on board the cultural heritage of an immigrant community. Bushra speaks to co-founder of the practice Jeroen Geurst, and resident Catja Edens, to investigate if designing with broader references has created dwellings that are better places for the residents to live. • Bushra Mohamed is an architect based in London, working for David Kohn architects, teaching with him at the AA and running a research studio with Nana Biamah Ofosu called Studio Nyali.
Episode 02
Chance Street: David Adjaye, Stephen Taylor & 6a discuss architectural legacy with David Ogunmuyiwa
A stone’s throw from the Boundary Estate, one of London’s earliest social housing schemes, lies Chance Street in Shoreditch. Lured by the availability of properties to support both residential and studio use, a number of prominent ‘young British artists’ moved here in the 1990s. The street has since generated a considerable architectural legacy, with David Adjaye’s Dirty House designed for artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster in 2002, Stephen Taylor’s terrace houses replacing a former print factory in 2007, and most recently 6a’s restoration of the corner block in 2018. Speaking to Adjaye, Taylor and Steph Macdonald and Tom Emerson of 6a, David Ogunmuyiwa asks how the projects are connected by their context. • David Ogunmuyiwa is founder of ArchitectureDoingPlace. He combines practice with teaching architecture at Portsmouth University and is a Mayor’s Design Advocate.
Episode 03
Kirchner Museum: Annette Gigon & Mike Guyer talk to Dow Jones about their first project in Davos
Created to house the art of the German expressionist painter Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, the museum is located in the Swiss town of Davos, where he spent the last twenty years of his life. The first major commission for Zurich architects Gigon Guyer, the Kirchner Museum blends into the snow-topped mountainous landscape of Davos. Wrapped in glass panels, the cladding’s opacity varies depending on where it is located on the volume; clear in the lower hall, matt in the skylights to diffuse the bright alpine light, and translucent to cover the thermal insulation to the concrete walls. London based practice Dow Jones, speak to Annette Gigon & Mike Guyer, to compare their parallel practice in designing cultural and exhibition spaces. • Biba Dow and Alun Jones founded Dow Jones in 2000. They have since completed numerous cultural projects including Maggie's Centre Cardiff and the Garden Museum.
Episode 04
BedZED: Bill Dunster discusses the legacy of pioneering urban village with Smith Mordak
The Beddington Zero Energy Development – BedZED for short – is an 82-unit mixed-use project designed around achieving ambitious reductions of energy, water and car use. Constructed in the Wallington suburb of London, the 1.4-hectare scheme for the Peabody Trust features a mix of social rent, shared ownership and market sale private housing along with community facilities and commercial units. The project was constructed from locally sourced materials and features its own on-site water treatment plant and woodchip fuelled combined heat and power plant. Smith talks to ZEDfactory principal Bill Dunster and resident Tom Nicholls to discuss the legacy of pioneering urban village, almost two decades after its completion; and the insights it can offer architects today amid the climate emergency. • Smith Mordak is Director of Sustainability and Physics at Buro Happold. They are a Trustee of the Architecture Foundation, a member of the Architects Declare Steering Group, co-founder of Turncoats, and a Design Advocate for the Mayor of London.
Episode 05
TFL International: Philip Bintliff talks to Lee Ivett about Studio BAAD's work in Preston
Commissioned to design a new headquarters for TFL International that would be both dynamic and economical, Studio BAAD constructed a two-story shed using prefabricated and low-cost materials. The building lies at the western side of the city of Preston, near the banks of the River Ribble. Clad with alternating black profiled metal and expanded aluminium mesh, the building glows at night from within. The mesh screens act to shade interior offices from direct sunlight whilst allowing the sliding doors to be left open for natural ventilation. Lee Ivett of Baxendale talks to Philip Bintliff, director of Studio BAAD, to discuss the principles of low tech construction and the importance of developing contemporary practice outside London. • Lee Ivett lives and works in Gourock and Preston. He is the founder of participatory architecture, art and design studio Baxendale. His practice is organic and generative, developing low-budget socially-led projects within communities across the UK. Ivett is Senior Lecturer and Course Leader for BSc. Hons Architecture at the Grenfell-Baines Institute of Architecture, Preston.
Episode 06
Green Park Station: Elsie Owusu OBE reflects on its refurbishment with Neba Sere
The refurbishment of Green Park Underground Station, completed as part of TfL's Olympic Games investment strategy, introduced a new street canopy featuring artwork by John Maine RA within the Portland stone cladding. The historic station was made fully accessible for the first time, with step-free access to all three lines through new lifts and a new ramp from the ticket hall into the park. Elsie Owusu OBE, in collaboration with Feilden+Mawson, led the masterplan for the area and the redesign of the station, relocating the Diana fountain from its original site in the centre of the park to form the centrepiece of the new entrance. Neba Sere talks to Elsie Owusu OBE about her reflections on the scheme 10 years on. • Neba Sere is a Senior Project Officer at the Greater London Authority, and is co-founder of Black Females in Architecture, She has led design & construction projects with young people at Build Up Foundation, and was formally one of six young trustees of the Architecture Foundation.
Episode 07
Bathing Culture: Jan Liesegang of Raumlabor discusses their design for a public sauna in Gothenburg
Located in the industrial harbour of Gothenburg, the public sauna was the first step in the area’s wider regeneration, celebrating the city's 400th anniversary in 2021. Designed in collaboration with the city’s residents, the sauna aims to revive urban public baths as a place for social gatherings and discussion. Corrugated rusting steel panels are chosen to preserve the memory of the dock’s industrial character, and inside, the sauna walls are clad in warm larch shingles. Barbara Kaucky & Susanne Tutsch, founders of ERECT architecture, talk to architect Jan Liesegang of Raumlabor and Jessica Segerlund, city planner at Älvstranden Utveckling for the development of Gothenburg.
Episode 08
Münster City Library: Peter Wilson of Bolles+Wilson on the role of libraries with Jonathan Hagos
In 1987, the city of Münster organised an architectural competition for the design of a new library, to commemorate the city's 1200th anniversary and its gradual rebirth after wartime devastation. The competition was won by Peter Wilson and Julia Bolles, a young London-based practice of two, who had graduated from and were teaching at the Architectural Association. The Münster City Library was the duo's first major public commission, incorporating distinct spatial conditions; a vast reading room centred around a communal table, warm timber-lined nooks and informal spaces for new media. In this conversation chaired by Jonathan Hagos, Peter Wilson of Bolles + Wilson's reflects on the practice's design for library, and the fundamental role that libraries play in the city. • Jonathan Hagos is an architect, academic and art director, co-founding the multi-disciplinary practice Freehaus in 2012. The practice is currently designing The Africa Centre’s new headquarters, a retro-fit in Southwark supported by the Mayor of London’s Good Growth Fund.
Episode 09
Young Vic: Steve Tompkins of Haworth Tompkins and Pricegore discuss the reimagined theatre
In 1970, Howell Killick Partridge Amis (HKPA) designed a theatre for the Young Vic company, an off-shoot of the Old Vic, that would create a new kind of theatre for a new generation - one that was unconventional, classless, open, circus-like and cheap. Arranged around an old butchers shop (a lone survivor of wartime bombing), the new theatre was built at a cost of £60,000 and was only intended to last for just five years. Although becoming one of Europe’s most important producing houses, the building itself had outgrown its informal beginnings. In the early 2000s, architects Haworth Tompkins won a competition to significantly expand and rework the site, re-imagining a new theatre grown around the auditorium, adding an enlarged foyer bar, two new studio theatres and much improved support spaces. Dingle Price and Alex Gore of Pricegore, talk to Steve Tompkins of Haworth Tompkins, about the unique design process for the renewed theatre. • Dingle Price and Alex Gore are founding directors of Pricegore, an architecture practice that seeks to respond to the particularities of contemporary economic, environmental, cultural and social conditions.
Episode 10
Koshirakura Landscape Workshop: Shin Egashira & PUP reflect on its 25-year history in northern Japan
Founded in 1996 by architect and artist Shin Egashira, the Koshirakura Landscape Workshop has been bringing architecture students to a remote rural village in Northern Japan for three weeks every summer. Students become temporary residents of the Koshirakura community, living and working in a former primary school building, which closed in 1994 due to too few schoolchildren. Koshirakura is one of the many post-agricultural communities slowly diminishing in its presence from the scenery of rural Japan, whose landscape can be seen as the shadow of urban growth over the last century. The students spend time understanding and participating in village life, whilst using locally available materials to explore tactile architectural forms. Previous projects have consisted of a communal kitchen, the rebuild of a local bus shelter, and an observatory built from reused material, with the help of local skills, songs, food, and sake. Although the individual built structures are small in scale, the 25 year history of the workshop can be seen as a single ongoing project, with a much broader influence of contemporary architectural practice. • Chloë Leen & Theo Molloy are directors of PUP, an architecture practice that creates characterful projects that are unique, materially driven and environmentally conscious. Their work is focused on bringing a positive impact to communities, individuals and organisations through the quality of their projects.
Episode 11
Ely Court: Alison Brooks discusses her housing practice with Yẹmí Aládérun & Zoë Berman
Completed in 2015 as one part of Brent Council's 15-year-long regeneration masterplan, Alison Brooks' Ely Court rehouses South Kilburn Estate’s existing tenants in a subtle series of urban blocks. Recalling the block and street pattern that characterised the archetypal 19th century London suburb, a reinstated mews street draws pedestrians into the middle of the shared block. A previously isolated and under-used green space between the post-war slab blocks is reimagined as a new garden square. In a conversation hosted by Part W members Yẹmí Aládérun (Meridian Water) & Zoë Berman (Studio Berman), Alison discusses her unique approach to housing design. • Yẹmí Aládérun is an architect and Development Manager at Meridian Water for Enfield Council. Zoë Berman is an architect, university lecturer, Director of Studio Berman and Founder of Part W – an action group formed in 2018 that campaigns for gender equity across the built environment sector.
Episode 12
Coed Mawr: Craig Hamilton discusses practice & philosophy at his home in Wales with Smith + Taylor
Home to architect Craig Hamilton and his wife, painter Diana Hulton, Coed Mawr is a collection of farm buildings set in the Welsh countryside, dating back from 1500. Upon acquiring the site in 1995, the duo's work on the farmhouse has evolved in stages, with an initial focus on restoring the character and materiality of the existing vernacular buildings. The most recent addition is a new library-drawing room, which draws from Hamilton’s wide range of architectural references. Divided into two by a screen of porphyry Ionic columns, the extension offers a thought-provoking exploration of neo-Classicism in a vernacular setting. In this short film, Timothy Smith and Jonathan Taylor (Smith and Taylor) visit Craig at his home in Wales, discussing his practice, philosophy and mentors. • Timothy Smith and Jonathan Taylor founded Smith + Taylor Architects in 2010, approaching modern architecture with traditional virtues, and a respect for history. Balance, proportion, character, intrigue and wit are central to their work. Current projects include estate buildings for the National Trust, a housing development in East Anglia and several residential conversions and refurbishments.
Episode 13
Peckham Library: Afterparti explore generosity & power with Christophe Egret, Hanif Kara & Tszwai So
Peckham Library stands as a momentous symbol of an era of optimism. Designed against the backdrop of New Labour and the approaching millennium, the library was commissioned by Southwark Council as part of the wide reaching regeneration of the borough in the late nineties. The brief sought to redefine the role of the library, encourage access to knowledge and embrace the diversity of the local community. Architects Alsop & Störmer worked with structural engineers AKTII to design an elevated ‘public living room’, incorporating timber wrapped learning pods shaped to resemble African pots. In the final episode of AF Turns 30, Afterparti talk to the designers engaged in the library’s past and present, exploring ideas of generosity, power and community. • Afterparti is a collective of architects, curators and writers interested in exploring ideas of equity in the city. Siufan Adey works collaboratively across film, publishing and curation, currently studying MA Research Architecture at Goldsmiths with Forensic Architecture. Thomas Aquilina is a London-based architect and academic invested in building communities of radical thought. He is co-director of the New Architecture Writers programme.