Category: office cultures
A Christmas Card from Ralph Erskine
06.07.2023
A Christmas Card from Ralph Erskine06.07.2023
Most of us must sometimes receive a message or a drawing that in retrospect we wish we’d retained—but they go astray. In my own case I can recall three: a note from the philosopher Bernard Williams about his friend Thomas Nagel (lost without record) a postcard from Göran Schildt clarifying our… Read More
Hardman & Co.
09.06.2023
Hardman & Co.09.06.2023
My interest in seeing the Hardman & Co. drawings at Drawing Matter was quite personally motivated as I feel a connection to the company. Partially, because I come from Birmingham where the company was based, and because I visited the studios informally in the 1980s with my parents. I was… Read More
Nuno Melo Sousa: weight
26.05.2023
Nuno Melo Sousa: weight26.05.2023
This text is a part of a series of reflections by Nuno Melo Sousa on his drawing practices. Click here for the series introduction. They dance.They stand.They stare.They bend.They underline.They comply.They don’t comply.They question.They agree.They dismiss.They provoke.They ignore. Each and every one of them keeps a continuous movement between what… Read More
Nuno Melo Sousa: on big papers
26.05.2023
Nuno Melo Sousa: on big papers26.05.2023
This text is a part of a series of reflections by Nuno Melo Sousa on his drawing practices. Click here for the series introduction. First, there were a couple of tense drawings.One, two, three. At the very third second, it quickly escalated to a nonstop dry pastel scratch on A2… Read More
Nuno Melo Sousa: on small papers
26.05.2023
Nuno Melo Sousa: on small papers26.05.2023
This text is a part of a series of reflections by Nuno Melo Sousa on his drawing practices. Click here for the series introduction. Kept behind the scenes, singing like mantras: voices in low tune. They flourish and are planted like small seeds.Their synthesis is colourful and schematic.They are all… Read More
Nuno Melo Sousa: on walls
26.05.2023
Nuno Melo Sousa: on walls26.05.2023
This text is a part of a series of reflections by Nuno Melo Sousa on his drawing practices. Click here for the series introduction. Liberation.When I was a kid, I could not draw on walls. It was forbidden in my parents’ house. At school, we could pin pieces of paper.… Read More
Nuno Melo Sousa: authority
26.05.2023
Nuno Melo Sousa: authority26.05.2023
This text is a part of a series of reflections by Nuno Melo Sousa on his drawing practices. Click here for the series introduction. there is no authority.there is no gravity.there is no fee.there is no programme.there is no agenda.there is no time.there is no client.there is no plot. Creatures.… Read More
On Authority
26.05.2023
On Authority26.05.2023
Following our recent series with fala we decided to approach some other practices who have themselves developed their design process through particular drawing ‘types’, challenging our expectation of the usage and forms traditionally associated with drawing in an architecture studio. We are very grateful to fala for introducing us to Nuno Melo Sousa… Read More
Peter Wilson: Ponte dell’Accademia
26.04.2023
Peter Wilson: Ponte dell’Accademia26.04.2023
In the years prior to the commencement of his major built works, Bridgebuilding No.4 Ponte dell’Accademia holds a critical position within the formative projects of the architect Peter Wilson. The design was prepared in response to an open international architecture competition that was launched under Aldo Rossi’s directorship of the… Read More
Nuno Melo Sousa: in cahiers
25.04.2023
Nuno Melo Sousa: in cahiers25.04.2023
This text is a part of a series of reflections by Nuno Melo Sousa on his drawing practices. Click here for the series introduction. As we travel, sitting, walking, flying, and running, we can look at the world.As we sit, eating, we can look at a small cahier also sitting,… Read More
T.O.P. Office and the Accademia Bridge
24.04.2023
T.O.P. Office and the Accademia Bridge24.04.2023
In a way, this project was architecturally ‘ready-made’. Our proposal for the Accademia Bridge can best be seen as an example of recycling and reuse. Formally, it sublimates what is available from a limitation of resources and materials. In the concept lies a wink to the (still naive in my… Read More
Construct
13.03.2023
Construct13.03.2023
In 1975, OMA (the Office for Metropolitan Architecture) produced two projects for Roosevelt Island (formerly Welfare Island), in New York’s East River, between Manhattan and Queens. The thin sliver of land—historically treated as ‘a storehouse for “undesirables”’ [1]—was undergoing a process of redevelopment under the New York State Urban Development… Read More
Owen Luder: Practice at Work
03.01.2023
Owen Luder: Practice at Work03.01.2023
The day-to-day workings of a practice such as OLP fall into two separate yet overlapping sectors: administration and job organisation. Unless these two are properly related and maintained, no amount of design talent, no amount of entrepreneurial vigour or personal charm will keep the practice alive and flourishing. For, despite… Read More
Drawing for James Stirling
20.12.2022
Drawing for James Stirling20.12.2022
Looking back forty years or so on my time in the basement of Jim Stirling’s office in Gloucester Place feels like travelling centuries. Today it is inconceivable that a world-renowned architect and Pritzker Laureate would show a client around the office wanting him to look at the equipment and be… Read More
fala: butterflies
19.12.2022
fala: butterflies19.12.2022
– fala
This is the final of eight articles in which the partners at fala examine different approaches to drawing and imagery within their practice as designers. Every discussion ends in a few drawn lines as words don’t do the job as well. A project is usually sketched between the lines that… Read More
fala: photography
13.12.2022
fala: photography13.12.2022
– fala
This is the seventh of eight articles in which the partners at fala examine different approaches to drawing and imagery within their practice as designers. We photograph the construction site a few times, to keep a certain moment for later. When construction ends, we photograph it again, intensely. Not just… Read More
fala: collages
25.11.2022
fala: collages25.11.2022
– fala
This is the sixth of eight articles in which the partners at fala examine different approaches to drawing and imagery within their practice as designers. fala started with collages. An abundance of images populated the internet; at some point, an online presence was decidedly claimed. Collages were the closest we… Read More
fala: execution drawings
07.11.2022
fala: execution drawings07.11.2022
– fala
This is the fifth of eight articles in which the partners at fala examine different approaches to drawing and imagery within their practice as designers. Construction documents include an array of scales. General drawings, partials, maps, details, and indexes are loaded with intentions and manic descriptions. They are supposed to… Read More
fala: renders
28.10.2022
fala: renders28.10.2022
– fala
This is the fourth of eight articles in which the partners at fala examine different approaches to drawing and imagery within their practice as designers. Low-resolution images are humble and straightforward. The textures are blunt and the colours are strong. Ambient occlusion is mostly off. Light, shadows and reflections are rarely under… Read More
Drawing Conversations: Letters to Clients
26.10.2022
Drawing Conversations: Letters to Clients26.10.2022
In October 1925 Le Corbusier wrote to his client Madame Meyer a remarkable letter about his proposal with Pierre Jeanneret for her villa. It combined drawings with a highly scripted text that carefully guided her through each space, from the entrance to the roof garden. Like the pioneers of early… Read More
fala: wireframes
17.10.2022
fala: wireframes17.10.2022
– fala
This is the third of eight articles in which the partners at fala examine different approaches to drawing and imagery within their practice as designers. Wireframes are snapshots of three-dimensional models built solely from lines. Single-line plans and sections are extruded to form a light envelope. Its colours dismantle the… Read More
Missing Link: Strategies of a Viennese Architecture Group (1970-1980) – Review
10.10.2022
Missing Link: Strategies of a Viennese Architecture Group (1970-1980) – Review10.10.2022
There is a strange moment in the second room of the exhibition, where all kinds of great works are hung on the walls to admire, organised around a central display of plastic and aluminium furniture: a collage of a car hovering like the golden calf amidst a crazed crowd; a… Read More
Instagram, Indifference, and Postcritique in US Architectural Discourse
05.07.2023
Instagram, Indifference, and Postcritique in US Architectural Discourse05.07.2023
– Joseph Bedford
The following text is reproduced from The Hybrid Practitioner: Building, Teaching, Researching Architecture (2022), edited by Caroline Voet, Eireen Schreurs, and Helen Thomas. The publication is available in print or as an ebook, here. You can find Joseph Bedford on Instagram here. From the 1970s through the 1990s, many architects… Read More