Architectural practices often invest heavily in procuring projects through winner-takes-all competition. In light of the architectural profession running such high risks, this discussion will seek out overlooked forms of practising that allow for a less precarious and more sustainable risk-taking. We will investigate ways to tackle the lack of mutual understanding between architects and the public at large, as an issue that has held our discipline captive. Furthermore, we will ask how architects could develop the metrics to evaluate their impact on society in order to retain their agency in the coming decades.
Through a series of conversations, Critical Practice brings together leading European architectural practitioners that through their projects and attitudes challenge the conventions of contemporary practice, to examine and rethink relationships between the profession and the network of actors and conditions surrounding it.
The series is organised and chaired by AA Diploma students Love Di Marco, Tobias Hentzer Dausgaard and AA Part 1 Arya Arabshahi.
Dr. Rory Hyde is a designer, curator and writer based in London. His work is focused on new forms of design practice for the public good, and redefining the role of the designer today. He is Curator of Contemporary Architecture and Urbanism at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne, and Design Advocate for the Mayor of London. His first book Future Practice: Conversations from the Edge of Architecture is available from Routledge.
Dr. Harriet Harriss (RIBA, PFHEA) is a qualified architect and coordinates the Post-Graduate Research programme. Her teaching, research and writing are largely focused upon pioneering new pedagogic models for design education as captured in Radical Pedagogies: Architectural Education & the British Tradition. Her 2016 publication, A Gendered Profession, asserts the need for widening participation as a means to ensure professions remains as diverse as the society it seeks to serve. She was most awarded a Clore Fellowship (2016-17), elected to the European Association of Architectural Education (EAAE) Council in summer 2017, and in 2018, awarded a Principal Fellowship of the UK's Higher Education Academy. Harriet's consultancy roles include the UK Department for Education construction industry panel, international programme validations and pedagogy design and development. From 2018-2020, Harriet will chair the RIBA's prestigious Dissertation Medal judging panel.
Image Caption : Fire masks, Hampstead, London, 1941
Credit: Lee Miller