Supersensible Speculations – or – Everything I Don't Know *

David Greene and Samantha Hardingham

This unit is interested in an architecture that is conditioned by the processes and technologies of search and retrieval. And by this, we really do mean search and not research, so that the architectural consequences of today's culture of continuous ventilation and circulation of information – what most people are doing most of the time – is observed, spied upon and thought about, rather than framed by neutralising, pseudo-scientific rubric. Students are invited to respond to a series of unrealised architectural projects** rethinking them in the light of now – with consideration to time, form and behaviour.

Each student will design and build their own bill of quantities and qualities to include technical and cultural components. Movies – moving pictures, drawings and models – will be used as the means of both documenting and articulating an idea. Outstanding development of search skills will produce possibilities for a supersensible architecture for the simultaneous search, storage, retrieval and deployment of information at a designated time and location.

• –– We encourage a multiple aesthetic, individual interests and the expectation of the unexpected.
• –– We are interested not in solutions but in responses.
• –– We think the unit should aim to be a paragon of intelligence, clarity and mischief.
• –– We shall work with searchers in the fields of investigative journalism, art, architecture and materials science.
• –– We will travel within the UK.

* Courtesy of a poem by R Buckminster Fuller.
** These are our influences and our inspiration – how many can you identify in the image on the opposite page?

Unit Staff

David Greene, born Nottingham 1937, usual English provincial suburban upbringing, art school, elected Associate member of the RIBA and on to London to begin a nervous twitchy career, from big buildings toT-shirts for Paul Smith to conceptual speculations for Archigram which he founded with Peter Cook. RIBA Gold Medal 2002 (Archigram). Joint Annie Spinks Award with Sir Peter Cook (2002). Currently visiting Prof of Architecture at Oxford Brookes University and External Examiner on the Masters in Advanced Research at the Bartlett.

Samantha Hardingham is an architectural writer and editor publishing work in several editions of the original ellipsis architecture guide series. She graduated from the AA in 1993. She was senior research fellow in the Research Centre for Experimental Practice at the University of Westminster 2003–09. She co-edited a book and co-curated the accompanying exhibition for L.A.W.U.N Project #19+20. She is currently researching a publication on the Complete Works of Cedric Price.