On June 16th the Architecture Foundation publishes New Architects 5, the latest edition in our landmark series of guides to the UK's best emerging practices. Throughout the summer we are also collaborating with the Zaha Hadid Foundation to present POST PRESS, a temporary event space programmed by the 93 practices featured in the book.
Housed at the Zaha Hadid Foundation's premises at 10 Bowling Green Lane in Clerkenwell, POST PRESS will play host to more than 30 events focused on subjects ranging from football to conservation, club culture to clay. The space will also be open as a library bookshop where visitors can browse New Architects 5 alongside a selection of titles donated by the featured practices.
New Architects 5 is avaliable for pre-order now from shop.architecturefoundation.org.uk
Wednesday June 17th, Sir Stuart Lipton in conversation with General Office
Join Emma Rutherford and Richard Hall of General Office for an onstage conversation with Sir Stuart Lipton, the developer whose work has reshaped modern London. From Broadgate, Stockley Park and Chiswick Park to Paternoster Square and 22 Bishopsgate, Lipton has brought architectural ambition, public space and civic purpose to commercial development. His influence also extends to major cultural projects, including Tate Modern and the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery. Off the back of General Office's recent work on the future of Stockley Park, this conversation asks what can be learned from a career spent transforming large sites into places of lasting metropolitan consequence.
Friday June 19th, A Design Service for the People with Unit 38
The first Community Technical Aid Centre (CTAC) was established in Liverpool in 1979. Supported by public funding, over 100 CTACs would open across the country, often in areas suffering high levels of deprivation and social inequality. Providing built environment services to people unable to afford professional fees, CTACs supported thousands of projects with technical aid encompassing architectural design, funding, operations, surveying, engineering, community work and rectification of housing issues. Today, almost none of this vital social infrastructure remains. Join us to travel ‘back to the future’: we will explore the legacy of CTACs and other spatial practices, and imagine ways to rebuild a design service for the people – strengthening the power communities have to shape their own neighbourhoods.
Tuesday 23rd June - Julian Harrap in conversation with Studio KA
Join Katherine Nolan and Alex Butterworth of Studio KA for a conversation with Julian Harrap, one of Britain's foremost conservation architects. Over five decades, Harrap hascombined scholarship, patience and exacting craft in the repair and renewal of historic buildings, with landmark projects including Sir John Sone's Museum, Pitzhanger Manor, the Royal Academy and the celebrated Neues Museum in Berlin. For Studio KA, whose work explores reuse, continuity and the cultural life of existing buildings, this meeting offers a chance to hear a practitioner reflect on evidence, judgement and invention, and on how architecture can help the past live.
Wednesday 24th June - The Past in the Present with James Pockson and Neal Shasore
What are the metaphors, gestures, details, and assumptions that constrain working with the historic environment? Where do they come from? Who do they serve? James Pockson (IDK) Neal Shasore (The School of Building) and guests will excavate, explore and test the cliches and conventions of conservation. Expect short and punchy responses to some of conservation's keywords - HARM, REPAIR, ADAPT, STITCH, CARVE, QUOTE - plenty of discussion, and a live craft demonstration.
Hosted by Jos Myles Geczy and Rosa Nussbaum, the designers and fabricators of Post Press, JIGS is a pop up exhibition bringing together architects and craftspeople to explore how London's fabrication economy shapes its design culture. Makers from Blackhorse Workshop and other open access fabrication spaces will display their work together with the jigs and tooling that enabled their production. From 7.30pm, Jos and Rosa will be in conversation with Mark Brearley, architect, author and owner of the long-established London tray and trolley manufacturer Kaymet, to reflect on how the economy of fabrication in the city has changed over time.
Friday 26th June - Making the V&A East with James Woodcock
Join James Woodcock, architect, engineer and director of Field Practice, for a conversation with people involved in the construction of V&A East, one of London's most significant new cultural projects. Recently appointed the first Matthew Bonye Research Fellow at the Architecture Foundation, Woodcock is developing Embodied Energy, an oral history project centring the experience of tradespeople, fabricators and makers who turn architectural ideas into built reality. Marking the project's public beginning, this event explores what buildings owe to the judgement, skill and collaboration of those who physically bring them into being.
Saturday 27th June - The Past is the Present is the Future with James Pockson and Neal Shasore
In the second of their two contributions to Craft and Conservation week, James Pockson (IDK) and Neal Shasore (The School of Building) call for a reassessment of our existing systems around ‘heritage’, conservation and preservation. Can we start to build a consensus about new conceptual frames, new modes of practice, new strategies and tactics? This session will be a festival of the unorthodox and heterodox. Alongside guests presenting different metaphors and motifs, we will collectively explore their implications using the Bowling Green Lane Board School and the historic district of Finsbury as a testing ground.
Sunday 28th June - Framing the City: An Urban Photography Workshop
Join photographer Giovanna Silva and Maurizio Mucciola of PiM.studio for a day-long workshop using the camera as a tool for reading and mapping the city, with contributions from Sebastian Scapolan of Scapolan Burney Architects and Liv Constable-Maxwell of MACK Books. Beginning with a conversation about photography as a mode of urban attention, participants will head out to photograph the city from various perspectives: a city for children, for the elderly, for women, for nature, for play, for conviviality. On return, guided by Silva and Constable-Maxwell, the group will collectively select and arrange their images into a small exhibition, printed on site and displayed for the week.
Wednesday 1st July - Studio Bua Printing Workshop
Studio Bua invites you to a print workshop and conversation led by artist Thóra Sigurðardóttir and her daughter, ceramicist and musician Sólrún, of Nýp — a guesthouse and cultural hub in West Iceland. Over the course of the workshop, participants will be introduced to two or three simple printing methods using water-based inks, aluminium plates and found textures. Sólrún will present Nýp and Clay, a conversation on how the spaces at Nýp have shaped local events and family projects, including new work with clay mined on site. Participants are invited to handle the raw material and paint bisque-fired pieces, which will be displayed in Nýp’s exhibition space. Birch and arctic thyme tea will be served.
Thursday 2nd July - Michael Mack in Conversation
Join us for a live recording of Scaffold, the podcast hosted by Matthew Blunderfield and produced by the Architecture Foundation, featuring long-form conversations with architects, artists and designers. This episode welcomes Michael Mack, founder of the London-based independent art and photography publisher MACK. Since launching the imprint in 2010 — following years as managing director of Steidl — Mack has shaped contemporary visual culture through nearly 500 titles spanning photography, art, critical theory, film and architecture. Michael will speak about the books that have most influenced him as a publisher, as well as books MACK has made, reflecting on its more recent foray into architectural publishing.
Saturday 4th July - Looking at Pictures
Surrounded by screens and a deluge of imagery, how do we look at pictures today? Twenty photographers, including Richard Wentworth, Rut Blees Luxemburg and Max Creasy, come together for this one-day event, each sharing a close reading of a single image. Rather than a lecture or a scripted presentation, these readings will act as meditations on pictures, emphasising slowness, attention and personal experience. Each contributor has chosen one image in a photography book to be displayed at POST PRESS for the week, before joining us on Saturday July 4th to record their reading in person. The recordings will be released as a podcast.
Tuesday 7th July - Spatial Queeries
The AF Young Trustees’ ‘Spatial Queeries’ group is bringing this year’s programme to an end with an open mic night. We will be celebrating queer spaces, stories and research. “Queerness” can also mean “otherness”, so we encourage anyone to come along and listen, or to share their experience. So far, the team has been activating London’s LGBTQ+ spaces by inviting spatial practitioners to share their knowledge through workshops, talks and reading groups.
Wednesday 8th July - Architecture LGBT+ Life Drawing: Briskness
Architecture LGBT+ is excited to welcome you to two special sessions of its Life Drawing Programme, presented over consecutive nights. For each session, we will be working with a queer model who will pose in a range of dynamic and interesting ways. The first of these sessions, Briskness, is about life and motion, with active poses that change over the course of each drawing and push you to draw confidently and decisively. All supplies are included, with refreshments available to buy on site. The room has full disability access.
Thusday 9th July - Architecture LGBT+ Life Drawing: Blunders
Architecture LGBT+ is excited to welcome you to two special sessions of its Life Drawing Programme, presented over consecutive nights. For each session, we will be working with a queer model who will pose in a range of dynamic and interesting ways. The second of these sessions, Blunders, is about folly, play and discovery: what happens when things go differently. Drawing games will be used to tease you out of your habits and reveal new ways of depicting the human form. All supplies are included, with refreshments available to buy on site. The room has full disability access.
Friday 10th July - (Romantic) Encounters
Dating apps suck. Friends don’t set up their single pals anymore. Nobody even throws house parties these days. Let’s all do something about it! Part speed-dating night, part meet-cute singles mixer, this evening of chaotic chemistry will bring together hot single Londoners who share an appreciation of great design, great food and taking a punt on something new. Featuring IKEA Smash or Pass with interior designer Carina Harford, food of love from legendary pastry chef and former MD of e5 Bakerhouse Louise Lateur, romance and clowning from Paulina Lenoir, ice cream churned by Phineas Harper and more…