Register – Architecture & Landscape

In this interview Andrew Clancy and Judi Farren Bradley interview Julian HARRAP. Julian is arguably the most distinguished conservation architect working in Europe today. In the work he completed with David Chipperfield on the Neues Museum he opened up a conversation about memory, authenticity and the abiding meaning of architecture in a highly nuanced manner. This work is of interest far beyond conservation circles of course, and I think it fair to say that this building has been one of the key works of the last 20 years in shaping the culture of architecture on our continent. Our contemporary understanding of bricolage, fragment and inflection are all wrapped up and tested in various ways in this building. There is a radicality here, one which is perhaps less immediately evident (but no less present) in other projects by Julian and in this conversation he takes us through the challenge of conservation - which in his view is never a simple dogmatic agenda, but another layer of architectural thinking. Www.julianharraparchitects.co.uk --------- Credits: Register is the Research Centre in the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London kingstonarchitecture.london Head of Department: Mary Johnson Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy Register: Christoph Lueder; Matt Wells; Matt Phillips Interviewer: Andrew Clancy and Matt Phillips Editor: Andrew Clancy Music: Poddington Bear - Rainbow Architecture

In this episode Andrew Clancy and Matt Phillips interview Prof Elly Mosayebi The practice she runs with her partners (Ron Edelaar and Christin Idebitzin) works from a deep understanding of the plan as a source of invention in the making of beautifully resolved housing. By a first principle interrogation of inhabitation and occupation they can arrive at plans which frequently eschew conventional geometries - to make characterful, resonant, architecture which is deeply human, gently inhabitable and yet steeped in a deep architectural knowledge. This is a rich, complex architecture - one which validates the discipline of architecture in its fullest sense - showing how a deep understanding of the history of architecture, and care in its making can make genuinely beautiful places for people to live. Elly is a professor in the ETH and there is a strong link between the teaching and research she conducts there with her students and the evolving nature of her practice. In this conversation we talk about this, and how she sees this developing in the future. --------- Credits: Registegr is the Research Centre in the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London kingstonarchitecture.london Head of Department: Mary Johnson Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy Register: Christoph Lueder; Matt Wells; Matt Phillips Interviewer: Andrew Clancy and Matt Phillips Editor: Andrew Clancy Music: Poddington Bear - Rainbow Architecture

In this podcast Mary Vaughan Johnson and Andrew Clancy interview Niall Hobhouse of Drawing Matter. Niall and his collection are such a valuable and important part of the contemporary architectural scene it is difficult to imagine it without this presence. Yet it is a rare and fragile thing. It is by no means obvious that a collection could be made which celebrates the doubts of creative production, and which reiterates the changing yet abiding value of the drawing as a site of critical enquiry. In the archives at shatwell, and in the many publications, exhibitions and educational programmes run by the archive there is a clear voice - one which is scholarly and playful, one that understands the collection as a living engine of thinking. Next week you are all welcome to join us in Kingston for the Frascari Symposium - which we are hosting here on the 27th and 28th July 2019. You are all welcome to join us as we explore the secret lives of drawings and models. http://kingstonarchitecture.london/frascari-symposium-iv-the-secret-lives-of-architectural-drawings-and-models-kingston-architecture-and-landscape-june-2019/ --------- Credits: Registegr is the Research Centre in the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London kingstonarchitecture.london Head of Department: Mary Johnson Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy Register: Christoph Lueder; Matt Wells; Matt Philips Interviewer: Andrew Clancy and Mary Johnson Editor: Andrew Clancy Music: Poddington Bear - Rainbow Architecture

In this episode Andrew Clancy interviews Fergus and Edmund of Feilden Fowles Their practice is one which foregrounds craft, and the formal histories of the language of industrial and agricultural structures as a site for discovery and invention. Their hands on approach is probably most celebrated in their own studio, located as part of a campus of structures for Waterloo city farm. Despite the contingencies of budget (the client being a charity) and the need for the buildings to be rapidly designed, made (and potentially moved in time) they worked with and elemental architecture and frugal materials to make a wonderfully considered series of buildings and spaces. This nimbless means that their investment in the details does not preclude larger work, and indeed they are working with contemporary industrial sites - such as their recently completed food production site in Somerset. Here they work with the language of contemporary industrial structures, but adjust these by addition, developing a figurative exterior linked to subtly tuned interiors. The interview goes through the evolution of their practice, and their views on architecture and education today. --------- Credits: Register is the Research Centre in the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London kingstonarchitecture.london Head of Department: Mary Johnson Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy Register: Christoph Lueder; Matt Wells; Matt Philips Interviewer: Andrew Clancy Editor: Andrew Clancy Music: Poddington Bear - Rainbow Architecture

—————— Before introducing this episode a quick mention of the free summer school for pre A- level students we run each summer with our partners. I talk a bit about this in the introduction - if you know anyone who might be interested there is more information here. http://kingstonarchitecture.london/architectural-drawing-summer-school-24-29-august-2019/ ———————- In this episode Andrew Clancy interviews Caroline Voet. Caroline joins us from Belgium where she works as an architect and an academic. She is rare, in that she excels in both practice and thinking about practice. The work of her practice, (Voet en de Brabandere, where she works in partnership with Leen de Brabandere) has a rigour in both formal and tectonic investigations - making buildings and interiors which are elegently conceived and beautifully resolved with their contexts. - http://www.voetendebrabandere.be As an academic Caroline is perhaps best known for her wonderful book (A House for the Mind) about the work of the architect Dom Hans Van der Lann, most particularly his seminal Rosenberg Abbey. This building is a continual touchstone for us here in Kingston, and Caroline’s research reveals its place in the thinking of its architect, and its abiding value as a building to draw lessons from today. - https://www.domusweb.it/en/architecture/2017/10/09/a-house-for-the-mind-explores-the-world-surrounding-the-philosophy-of-the-dutch-architect-monk-dom-hans-van-der-laan.html --------- Credits: Register is the Research Centre in the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London kingstonarchitecture.london Head of Department: Mary Johnson Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy Register: Christoph Lueder; Matt Wells; Matt Philips Interviewer: Andrew Clancy Editor: Andrew Clancy Music: Poddington Bear - Rainbow Architecture

In this episode Andrew Clancy interviews Ryan Kennihan. Ryan is an architect, based in Dublin, and is leader of the thesis year in TU Dublin (formerly DIT Dublin School of Architecture) there. His practice is concerned with making buildings which act in continuity with typologies, forms and materials found in their physical context. These are translated through engagement with contemporary tectonics to make an expressive architecture in which structure, weathering and craft are considered and carefully calibrated. In this conversation we talk through his journey to this point, and the ideas fueling his practice today. http://www.rwka.com --------- Credits: Register is the Research Centre in the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London http://kingstonarchitecture.london Head of Department: Mary Johnson Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy Register: Christoph Lueder; Matt Wells; Matt Philips Interviewer: Andrew Clancy Editor: Andrew Clancy Music: Poddington Bear - Rainbow Architecture

In this episode Nana Biamah Ofasu interviews Marius Grootveld. Marius is a partner, along with Jantje Engels of the practice Veldwerk. Established in 2015, their practice is part of a broader movement in Flanders of practices interested in making work in weaving narratives from the contexts they are asked to make work. Representation, typology and precedent act as a site for investigation, and discovery. Restlessly passionate about architecture in its widest sense Marius also pursues this interest in is work as an educator and curator. In this work he both seeks to provoke a discourse, and to shine a light on lesser known voices in our discipline - be they practicing today or a precedent from many centuries ago. http://mariusgrootveld.nl --------- Credits: Register is the Research Centre in the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London http://kingstonarchitecture.london Head of Department: Mary Johnson Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy Register: Christoph Lueder; Matt Wells; Matt Philips Interviewer: Nana Biamah Ofasu Editor: Andrew Clancy

In this episode Ellis Woodman interviews Timothy Smith and Jonathan Taylor of Smith Taylor Architects. Ellis is director of the architecture foundation, and a valued thinker and writer about architecture. Jonathan and Timothy established their practice in 2010. In their practice and their teaching they investigate classicism, and its potential as a living language of architecture. They engage with this way of thinking, not through nostalgia or sentimentality, but with criticality. This is unusual among contemporary classicists, many of whom seek to make perfected classical fragments, solely by engagement with the classical treatises, and an elitist approach to brief and budget. This hermeticism misses the point that architecture gains its value by abrasion against the forces which bring it into being and shape it, be they technical, economic, legislative etc. It is in this friction between idealised and realisable that a conversation emerges that allows architecture to act as a carrier of cultural knowledge, and allow with an empathetic connection with individuals, and even of society more generally. In the work of Smith Taylor we see this conversation at work. Here classism is a living, malleable fabric, one informed as much by contemporary thoughts as by adherence to the orders. In writing this I am thinking of the columns, (as much brick piers as classical order) on a modest rear garden extension, the cleverly tuned plan of a competition entry for a chapel in Dublin or the exuberant modelled soffits which they use in many projects. Here the nature of contemporary construction allows (indeed requires) an engagement with the classical language in a new way. http://www.smithandtaylorllp.com/index.php/site --------- Credits: Register is the Research Centre in the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London http://kingstonarchitecture.london Head of Department: Mary Johnson Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy Register: Christoph Lueder; Matt Wells; Matt Philips Interviewer: Andrew Clancy Editor: Andrew Clancy

In this episode we are joined by Prof Hugh Campbell Hugh is a writer, a curator and an educator. His research examines the the relationship between photography, architecture and built space and the visual culture of cities. His recent publications include the edited volume Architecture 1600- 2000, volume 4 of the RIAI/Yale UP production Art and Architecture of Ireland (2014); a special issue of Architecture and Culture on Architecture and Film, edited with Igea Troiani. Forthcoming are an edited book on Architecture Filmmaking (also with Igea Troiani) to be published by Intellect in 2018, and a book Space Framed: Architecture, Photography and Built Space, to be published by Lund Humphries in early 2019, which will built upon a sequence of papers and book chapters on this theme. With Nathalie Weadick, he was curator of Ireland's pavilion at the 2008 Venice Biennale. He is also co-curator, with Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of the ‘Close Encouter’ exhibition in the 2018 Venice Biennale. https://people.ucd.ie/hugh.campbell --------- Credits: Register is the Research Centre in the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London http://kingstonarchitecture.london Head of Department: Mary Johnson Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy Register: Christoph Lueder; Matt Wells; Matt Philips Interviewer: Andrew Clancy Editor: Andrew Clancy

In this episode Bushra Mohamed interviews Jaume Mayol who is a partner in TEd’A Arquitectos along with Irene Perez. Their practice, based in Mallorca is a territorial one, seeking to make its architecture from the lessons in the vernacular of the areas they build - both in the tectonics found there, and in the formal arrangements of elements. This sensibility is married to ideas which emerge from the canon, to produce a hybridity of grounded ideas rigorously resolved. A clear sophistication in their understanding of typology results in an acute refinement in how they consider the internal arrangements and formal disposition of their works. Perhaps more simply stated their plans are exquisite - clearly a central fascination of the practice. Here elements are nested, framed or juxtaposed such that misalignments or tensions emerge in how programmes and the building fabric cohere. Structural elements are frequently deployed as characters occupying the spaces that they make, less an ordering device than an empathetic presence. Based in Mallorca this is not the limit of their definition of their territory. They have concentrated on competitions, mainly in Switzerland. Here their territoriality is disposed as a reading of the swiss context. In their peripheral location, their connection to a territory, and their ability to use this not a a limit but as a liberation to engage with other places as a wonderful example of the contemporary moment in European architecture. http://tedaarquitectes.com --------- Credits: Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London http://kingstonarchitecture.london Head of Department: Mary Johnson Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy Interviewer: Bushra Mohamed Editor: Andrew Clancy

In this episode Bruno and Sylvester and Diego Calderon interview Manuel Rocha de Aires Mateus. His practice, which he established with his brother in Lisbon in 1988 represents another pole of the deep architectural culture of Portugal. In contrast with the work of the Porto School Lisbon architects engage with more abstracted reading of type and materiality. Aires Matues are among the best known proponents of this way of thinking. Externally their buildings tend to the monolithic, with a language of eroded forms. There is a calibrated conversation with gravity here, and with mass lightly suspended, or tautly drawn on its surface with windows and other detailing. Internally the landscapes are rich, even sculptural. Manuel is a Professor in the Accademia di Archittetura in Mendrisio, a school which shares our agenda in prioritising the practitioner and the built work in thinking about our discipline. --------- Credits: Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London http://kingstonarchitecture.london Head of Department: Mary Johnson Producer: Andrew Clancy / Laura Evans Interviewer: Bruno Silvestre & Diego Calderon Editor: Andrew Clancy

In this episode Matt Wells interviews Dingle Price and Alex Gore of Pricegore Architects. Their practice, now in its fifth year, is among the more compelling recent arrivals in the UK. Much of the work of a young practice inevitably involves situations rife with uncertainty, contingency and the need to use minimal means. In this context it is remarkable that the core concerns of the practice are already so clearly and consistently established and interrogated. In common with many of their peers Pricegore are invested in a culture of continuity and historically sited work, but with their own particular take, based on a shared education incorporating architecture, furniture and landscape design. In their work discrete elements such as Roof, Window, Wall, Stairs etc are considered both singularly and as a society of elements which make a building. There is a care taken in how each might possess a characterful fragmentary stance, and yet sit as ease in the complex whole that is the finished work. Put simply the primary scale of their enquiry is directed not with typology (as in building arrangement and form) but with archetype. This emphasis on the intimate over the urban does not preclude an interest in scale or public facing work, but rather situates these concerns in the context of our fragmented age. http://pricegore.co.uk --------- Credits: Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London http://kingstonarchitecture.london Head of Department: Mary Johnson Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy Interviewer: Matt Wells Editor: Andrew Clancy

In this episode Andrew Clancy interviews Floris de Bruyn, one of three partners in the Belgian practice GAFPA. GAFPA's is concerned with a careful unpicking of the contexts in which their buildings are situated and in they way that they are then made. This contextual read does not extend only to the physical site, but to todays vernacular of mass produced standardised building components. This is all governed by an underlying connection with the deep architectural currents of type and architype, and in a careful calibration of proportion, rhythm and order. GAFPA make spaces and forms which sit in a careful equilibrium - beautiful in its consideration and realisation. While the construction is expressive of its assembly, articulated and layered. http://www.gafpa.net --------- Credits: Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London www.kingston.ac.uk/faculties/kings…-and-landscape/ Head of Department: Mary Johnson Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy Interviewer: Andrew Clancy Audio: Madoka Ellis

In this episode Andrew Clancy interviews Dr Cat Rossi. Cat is a design historian, with a socially and politically engaged approach to researching and communicating design history. Consistently provocative, insightful and nimble in her ability to weave multiple narratives, Cats work allows new light to be cast on the areas she explores. In this conversation she takes us us on a lyrical tour of the design history of Nightclubs, and their relationship to broader architectural currents, with particular emphasis on the post-war Italian radical tradition (Gruppo 9999; Superstudio et al). We also talk about the exhibition she is co-curating, and which opens in the Vitra Design Museum on 17 March 2018. This exhibition, entitled 'Nightfever' is the first comprehensive study of nightclub design, and will be travelling to the UK at some future date. https://www.design-museum.de/en/exhibitions/detailpages/night-fever-designing-club-culture-1960-today.html http://www.kingston.ac.uk/staff/profile/dr-catharine-rossi-267/ --------- Credits: Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London www.kingston.ac.uk/faculties/kings…-and-landscape/ Head of Department: Eleanor Suess Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy Interviewer: Andrew Clancy Audio: Madoka Ellis

In this episode Hugh Strange interviews Beate Holmebakk of Mathey Kula Architects to speak about her work, and that of her practice. Beate is a leading figure in Norwegian architectural practice and education. Her practice has made a singular position with works that seek to establish a resonant formal presence within the remarkable landscapes in which they are situated. In considering the lineage for this work it comes as no surprise that Beate studied with Sverre Fehn and John Hejduk among others. Harnessing pragmatic concerns (such as the consideration of snow melt and rain water on a roof form, or of the organisational requirements of a hydro electric plant) Manthey Kula find space for expression sited within the particular logics of each site and brief. The manner in which they distill this into the finished work is remarkable, through a process invested in the power of abstraction while never losing sight of the vitality of the material presence of the finished work. Her buildings are not mute, but are protagonists in their contexts. They possess a poise, an alertness to where they are. Perhaps they ask of us a similar alertness - they are not interested in us being aware of the building alone, but of the building in relation to where it is. They invite us to see anew. http://www.mantheykula.no Hugh Strange is an architect here in London, and runs a unit in our M.Arch programme http://www.hughstrange.com --------- Credits: Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London www.kingston.ac.uk/faculties/kings…-and-landscape/ Head of Department: Eleanor Suess Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy Interviewer: Hugh Strange Audio: Madoka Ellis

In this episode Aoife Donnelly interviews Marcus Donaghy and Will Dimond of Donaghy Dimond Architects. Donaghy Dimonds work is characterised by robust, elemental massing which is then inhabited and tuned with a meticulous level of attention to the details of how it is made. They appear to be constantly seeking opportunities where the matter of the building can be tuned to support inhabitation - be it in how a doorway might be a good place to sit in the sun, or in how a window in a classroom relates to a tree . These moments are folded throughout the projects, producing a density of consideration which does not overwhelm, but rather sits at ease with the otherwise direct (elemental, typological) strategy as a whole. This is probably best exemplified by their recent Inchicore School project, which was recently awarded the AAI Downes Medal (The highest architectural award in Ireland). http://www.donaghydimond.ie Aoife Donnelly, our interviewer, is an architect in practice and also is a senior lecturer in architecture. She leads our First Year and a studio unit in second year. http://www.kingston.ac.uk/staff/profile/ms-aoife-donnelly-498/ --------- Credits: Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London www.kingston.ac.uk/faculties/kings…-and-landscape/ Head of Department: Eleanor Suess Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy Interviewer: Aoife Donnelly Audio: Madoka Ellis

In this episode Andrew Clancy interviews Job Floris, a partner with Sandor Naus in Monadnock Architects, a practice based in Rotterdam. Their buildings possesses a formal intensity which is leavened with careful attention to their materiality. Their buildings sit at ease with their place in the living tradition of European architecture and yet speak of our current time, and the ambiguities of contemporary tectonics. In their practice the history of architecture is seen as a place for invention, a place to dream using the tools of our age. Their buildings possess the same peculiar familiarity of their drawings, a sense of something seen before and yet entirely new. A sense of delicacy and simultaneous formal heft. This takes great skill and careful balance which can be easily overlooked. If we examine how for example they treat brickwork in two projects (Atlas and Nieuw Bergen) we see in one (Atlas) how the joints are manipulated to offset the purity of the skin, giving a textural reading which changes in our relationship with the building while in the other the entire surface of the brick is treated to allow this civic structure read almost as a theatrical stage set to the town it addresses. The detail and the whole are set in a careful dance from which the overall character of the building emerges. In this conversation we try to capture the breadth of Jobs interests and background, and the forces which have informed how he and his practice think about architecture. Job teaches in Rotterdam, where he co-ordinates the Masters of Architecture there. http://monadnock.nl/en --------- Credits: Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at the Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London https://www.kingston.ac.uk/faculties/kingston-school-of-art/study/architecture-and-landscape/ Head of Department: Eleanor Suess Producer: Laura Evans / Andrew Clancy Interviewer: Andrew Clancy Audio: Madoka Ellis

In this episode Andrew Clancy interviews the architect and educator Tom de Paor. Tom graduated from UCD in 1991, and established his practice that same year. Since this time he has cut a singular path, establishing a clear position through work which seeks to communicate spatially and in detail regardless of programme or location. In the work process narrative, reference, and material are frequently interwoven and infected by sensitivity to context, the material experience of construction and light. Underpinned by a conviction in the creative design process the built projects illustrate a concern with perception, construction and tradition. Projects such as the N3 pavilion for the 1999 Venice Biennale capture this attitude in its most essential and pure form, but it is found no less in other works which range from infrastructure, to public and domestic spaces. This diversity of scope and type of work is captured by the practices current workload which includes completing a remarkable cinema in Galway (Picture Palas), an ongoing project to transform and a farmyard landscape near Greystones (Wyngates), and the design of glassware and other objects. Our conversation covers a lot of ground, from the value of the crit, to the nature of design process, and the perplexing mystery of Siza's expansion joints. Tom teaches in the Harvard Graduate School of Design. www.depaor.com/ --- Credits: Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at Kingston University. fada.kingston.ac.uk/al/ Head of Department: Eleanor Suess Register Editor: Timothy Smith Interviewer: Andrew Clancy Audio: Justin Howard

In this episode Andrew Clancy interviews the architect and educator Tony Fretton. Since establishing his practice in 1982, and by example and instruction Tony has persistently made the case for the value of quiet and thoughtful architecture. This thinking was made powerfully manifest in his ambiguous masterpiece - the Lisson Gallery - makes a reading of its London context which is at once lyrical and scholarly, and does so in a manner respectful of its programme as a small gallery, and its civic responsibilities. When this project was completed it provided an exemplar for architects across Europe who were seeking a means to engage with history and context without recourse to pastiche and on the terms of contemporary tectonics. Its value remains today and we talk about this project at length in this interview. A wonderful companion to get to this project is the sketchbooks published by Drawing Matter, and available to download here https://www.drawingmatter.org/publications/fretton-lisson-gallery/ Tony continues to teach, and he reflects on the particular challenges facing young practitioners and students. He sets these against where he now finds himself, and the potential for continued discovery and reinvention in late practice - a rich tradition in the history of architecture. This was an impromptu interview in Tony's office - apologies about the ambient sounds from the local school, which while joyful might make certain parts of the interview difficult to follow! Credits: Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at Kingston University. fada.kingston.ac.uk/al/ Head of Department: Eleanor Suess Register Editor: Timothy Smith Interviewer: Andrew Clancy Audio: Justin Howard

In this episode we are joined by the sculptor Maud Cotter. Maud's work, frequently exquisitely made from every day materials explores space, and the relational potential of space beyond the closed question of resolution. Her ability to articulate 'open questions' in her work and work process makes her an inspirational critic and speaker, who gets to the heart of what is involved in producing a sustainable creative practice in art or architecture. Writing of her work to date she says "We exist in a network of relations, one that allows formation in pattern in order to engage with its force. In this field of play, in which things carom, my practice lies. Sculpture as an action is critical to our understanding of this mercurial game of randomness and order. I understand the human condition as being, not just tentative by virtue of our vulnerability, but one that is necessarily so, in order to retain our closeness of connection with a changing world. We exist in a network of relations, one that allows formation in pattern in order to engage with its force. In this field of play, in which things carom, my practice lies. Sculpture as an action is critical to our understanding of this mercurial game of randomness and order. I understand the human condition as being, not just tentative by virtue of our vulnerability, but one that is necessarily so, in order to retain our closeness of connection with a changing world. Moments in which one thing resonates with another are special. This gather, or coupling, of elements is at its most profound when a feeling of the found is retained in the final mix ; when aesthetic boundaries are not forced. Corporate culture limits our relationship with matter into measurable units, offering us only an impoverished understanding, a limited relationship, deactivated matter, captured and dead. Within the intangible lies the aesthetic glue that allows units of matter to reach a transcendent whole. Recognition and activation of the void provides a deep level of integration of idea and matter. Making in this arena of presence and absence, within the full context of the work, offers continuity, live engagement - a propagation of form and idea. Achieving this level of live engagement within the work is my primary goal. I seeks to assert such spatial sequences, movements in time, as the viewer moves around the work in a commitment of seeing, allowing the piece to reach completion in their perception of it. The strength of the work lies in its ability to hold intangible moments, to capture a part of the void, like a ghost within the work." http://maudcotter.com Credits: Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at Kingston University. fada.kingston.ac.uk/al/ Head of Department: Eleanor Suess Register Editor: Timothy Smith Interviewer: Andrew Clancy Audio: Justin Howard

In this episode we are joined by Donald Matheson and Jason Whiteley. They set up their practice in London in 2012, after some years working for Tony Fretton and Herzog & deMeuron. Theirs is an architecture of minimal means. They have a careful eye for latent possibilities in the fabric where they work, and many of their projects find their language in these observations. They build on these with typological references and an unsentimental engagement with the realities of contemporary construction. Refreshingly they welcome budget negotiations as a means to engage with reality. In this there is no reduction of ambition, but rather a refinement of how it is manifest. There is a delightful directness from the work that results with the plans in particular worked to a high level of refinement. Underlying this there is an incipient figuration - with structural elements or the facade arranged not in the search of being fully background, but rather to possess an unpretentious presence. Our conversation covered a lot of ground, most particularly teaching, and the value of teaching to both student and tutor. http://www.mathesonwhiteley.com Credits: Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at Kingston University. fada.kingston.ac.uk/al/ Head of Department: Eleanor Suess Register Editor: Timothy Smith Interviewer: Andrew Clancy Audio: Justin Howard

In this episode we are joined by Hans Kollhoff, who we invited to Kingston to do a workshop with unit 6 of our M.Arch, and to give a register lecture. Prof Kollhoff teaches in the ETH, and practices from Berlin in partnership with Helga Timmermann. Kollhoffs life work might be described as a quest for meaning and language in contemporary archtiecture. Writing of the Piraeus building in 1995 he said “Un­der the eco­nom­ic pres­sure to cre­ate some­thing op­ti­mal in ev­ery re­spect, ev­ery­ building turns out to be noth­ing but an unin­spired shoe­box which the architect then dec­o­rates as they think best. To­day's build­ing pro­grammes de­fy for­mal analo­gies so that, if they doesn't want to mar­ket themselves as a win­dow- dress­er, the ar­chi­tect is forced to fer­ret around and find ves­tiges of for­mal in­ten­si­ty in even the most ba­nal build­ing pro­grammes and pro­jects” This search has taken him through an exploration of different ways this might be found. His early works seek this in the harnessing of the contingencies of regulations and site, while more recent projects embrace Chicago School or Classical forms depending on the typology. http://www.kollhoff.de/en/index.html Credits: Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at Kingston University. fada.kingston.ac.uk/al/ Head of Department: Eleanor Suess Register Editor: Timothy Smith Interviewer: Timothy Smith & Jonathan Taylor Audio: Justin Howard

In this episode we are joined by Oliver Lutyens and Thomas Padmanabhan. The work of their practice is thoughtful and scholarly, and yet open minded and lyrical. In teasing out the fundamental tension between façade and plan they have developed a characterful and playful expressive language through a series of modest residential developments. Invested in a deep knowledge of the history of architecture, they critically examine contemporary tectonics in a search for an appropriate civic language. They do not seek significance in monumentality or in the weight of material expression. Rather they find it by considering external insulation, rain screens and winter gardens, as valid sources of architectural investigation. Informed by precedents these technologies are each tuned to give a quiet dignity to the ordinary ways we must make buildings today. http://luetjens-padmanabhan.ch Credits: Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at Kingston University. fada.kingston.ac.uk/al/ Head of Department: Eleanor Suess Register Editor: Timothy Smith Interviewer: Andrew Clancy Audio: Justin Howard

In this episode we are joined by Prof Elizabeth Hatz, of the KTH in Stockholm and SAUL in Limerick. Her early built projects enjoy a lightness of touch, grounded in the deep Swedish culture of architecture and yet playful and ambiguously figurative. Her teaching gained attention for the deep connection she makes between drawing and thinking, and it is this territory she has worked in in recent years. A wide range of practitioners value her voice in drawing out the latent qualities of drawings, and articualting their broader value to the discipline. Writing in the recent Quart Verlag book of Markli's drawings she writes "The drawing for the architect is where everything is open, until it is built... ...architecture undergoes continuing change and alteration through its lifetime, it is not finished when it is built; it merely starts its own life. Therefore we could also reconnect the built to the realm of the sketch, the essay and the fragment. And stand in front of it, both with the mark of will and the promising openness of some incertitude" In this conversation she speaks of this act of looking, of being comfortable with doubt in process. Above all else she talks eloquently about the necessary time in both learning and making architecture. Credits: Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at Kingston University. fada.kingston.ac.uk/al/ Head of Department: Eleanor Suess Register Editor: Timothy Smith Interviewer: Andrew Clancy Audio: Justin Howard

In this episode we are joined by Prof Terunobu Fujimori and Takeshi Hayatsu. Their collaboration through the work of Unit 5 here in Kingston (run by Takeshi) is reaching a culmination this year with the making of a Japanese teahouse for the Barbican Japanese House exhibition. In this discussion we talk about how Prof Fujimori started to make buildings, and the challenges he faces as he now works on progressively larger works. We talk about the value of theory and criticism, and about the times when it is necessary to let the work talk for itself. https://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery/event-detail.asp?ID=19951 Credits: Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at Kingston University. fada.kingston.ac.uk/al/ Head of Department: Eleanor Suess Unit 5 Leader: Takeshi Hayatsu Register Editor: Timothy Smith Interviewer: Andrew Clancy Audio: Justin Howard

In this episode we are joined by David Grandorge - an architect, photographer and academic living and working in London. As a photographer he undertakes commissioned work, collaborating with architects, artists and art institutions. He also makes work independently. His work has been shown in numerous exhibitions including the Venice (2008) and Prague (2005) biennales and has been published internationally in magazines, journals and books. He has written several published articles on architecture and photography. David is a also a senior lecturer in structure, construction and materials at the the Cass School of Architecture, London Metropolitan University and leads Diploma Unit 7. He has been a visiting lecturer, tutor and/or critic at the University of Bath, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, ETH Zurich, Cambridge University and Kingston University. In this conversation we talk through David's history as a practitioner and educator. He talks about the importance of architects such as the Smithsons in developing his views on the subject, and what he sees as the challenges facing architects today, with a particular focus on London. Credits: Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at Kingston University. fada.kingston.ac.uk/al/ Head of Department: Eleanor Suess Register Editor: Timothy Smith Interviewer: Andrew Clancy Audio: Justin Howard

In this episode we are joined by the Developer, Historian and Architect Crispin Kelly. Crispin is a developer with a deep understanding of architecture, most evidenced by his studies at the AA, but more pertinently by the space he has made for thoughtful work in the risky and contested world of private development. His willingness to personally back talented architects in the making of small and medium scale work gives him an insight into our discipline tempered by the contingencies of economics and return. Most recently he has been working with Peter Salter on the housing complex at Walmer Yard, Peters first built work in many years. In this interview he discusses his education, and career. He shares his thoughts on housing, profit, and affordability. Along the way he gives a detailed insight into what it was like working with his former teacher Peter Salter. Credits: Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at Kingston University. fada.kingston.ac.uk/al/ Head of Department: Eleanor Suess Register Editor: Timothy Smith Interviewer: Andrew Clancy Audio: Justin Howard

In this episode Andrew Clancy is joined by Ricardo Flores and Eva Prats of Flores Prats Architects. (NOTE: During the conversation we have an extended conversation about their Casa Balaguer project - being able to refer to the drawings and images might be useful to understand this part! http://www.floresprats.com/archive/palau_balaguer/) Flores Prats work with a lyrical precision, working into and out of the contexts where it is sited. Sites are read formally and culturally with memory and the incidental valued as a site for discovery. The roots of the practice lie in the time that Eva and Ricardo spent working with the late Enric Miralles and the investigations of this time continue to be a source of agitation and delight. Disarmingly modest when they speak they do so directly and with no artifice. In their built works disparate elements are held in an equilibrium in which everything impinges on everything else in a choreography at once gestural and deeply felt. Familiar elements are woven into new guises at once new and apposite. In this reworking their essentials become more vitally manifest. In this interview they talk through how they met in the offices of Enric Miralles, and how they see their work relative to his. The culture of drawing is discussed in depth, not least how they use hand drawings as a living working method in their studio, as a way to see the contexts where they work. http://www.floresprats.com Credits: Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at Kingston University. fada.kingston.ac.uk/al/ Head of Department: Eleanor Suess Register Editor: Timothy Smith Interviewer: Andrew Clancy Audio: Justin Howard

In this episode Andrew Clancy is joined by Christopher Dyvik and Max Kahlen of Dyvik Kahlen Architects. Their London based office was established in 2010 and operates across various scales and sectors in the UK, Holland, Germany and Norway, collaborating with clients ranging from public institutions and developers to artists, curators and private individuals. Underlying their work is a desire for objects and spaces that are comfortable and strangely familiar, as much as a fascination for rational and neutral form. In this interview they discuss their education, and how they came to establish their practice. In particular the role of representation in their work was described in detail - this is not deployed as a presentation technique alone, but as a way to tune and develop their work. http://www.dyvikkahlen.com Credits: Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at Kingston University. http://fada.kingston.ac.uk/al/ Head of Department: Eleanor Suess Register Editor: Timothy Smith Interviewer: Andrew Clancy Audio: Justin Howard

In this first episode Eleanor Suess and Andrew Clancy introduce the Register podcast, which is a new initiative from our department of Architecture and Landscape in Kingston. Our school is one invested in acting in continuity with architectural culture, and in cultivating practitioners who make work in a thoughtful manner, attuned to the social and physical contexts where they work. This podcast will host a diverse range of conversations with people who visit our school. Some will be practitioners engaged in making work, others may be researchers, or planners or developers - people involved in enabling a space for architecture. We are interested in making a space to talk discursively about the culture of practice. Credits: Register is brought to you by the Department of Architecture & Landscape at Kingston University. fada.kingston.ac.uk/al/ Head of Department: Eleanor Suess Register Editor: Timothy Smith Audio: Justin Howard