
Technology in the studio
Last year I was lucky to sign up for DS6 - in its inaugural year. Back when I was a second year in 2010 I tackled a parametric technology based studio and it did not end 0. I failed the year and vowed to avoid a technology based studio ever again . . . When DS6 was pitched the integration of technology to design intrigued me and I was really interested in pushing myself into something that could well end in disaster. The first ever studio meeting is always exciting. We were e

Gang of Six
Interdisciplinary practice is being embraced by the architecturalcommunity, but how far can collaboration go? In a recentinterdisciplinary project in Söderhamn, Sweden, members of the group Gang of Six (formed in the melting pot of the Oxford Brookes first yearstudio) participated in a collaboration with two musicians, JohanJutterstrom and Linda Olah, two dancers, Toby Kassel and IngeborgZackariassen and visual artist, Andreas Larsson. The central idea of the project was to p

My Fetish: Watching Old Men on YouTube
Your reading of the title says more about you than it does me. I spent a few minutes going through my fetishes – as anyone might when confronted by this theme. I realised that a [hu]man can turn almost anything into a fetish; any action, any piece of clothing, any smell, any material. I guess this is in line with the postmodern condition as discussed by Jean-François Lyotard – we are able to enjoy a profusion of small narratives and this leads to a plural of fetishes. Or mayb

Formal fetishes
Although it is mostly associated with the world of sex, sexual activities and kink, we are all victims of this feeling on a day to day basis. I say victims because it is something that comes in a subconscious way, it attacks our ideas and the way we go about our life. As individuals we are attracted to things, objects, concepts, which to anyone else could seem trivial, but for us they have a strong psychological effect. Evidently I am talking about our deepest, dirtiest and m

The value of failed research: Civic Pedagogy TV
It was the late American architect, Louis Kahn who said, “A good question is always greater than the most brilliant answer.” Within our research enquiry however, we felt that a good question should not only consider what to ask but also who to ask. Subsequently, if our aim is to imagine what a civically-informed curricula for Higher Education might look like, then we need to involve more than academics and students in the process of establishing a meaningful definition. Takin