With architectural production becoming ever more beholden to the needs of capital and the building industry, the role of the architect is changing. This series of events and lectures, held at the RA, address the critical issues informing architecture today.

Image caption: KA300 Pavilion, Karlsruhe, Germany, 2015, by J. MAYER H / Photo Frank Dinger

Architecture and Freedom

Architects and their work

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Murcutt works as a sole practitioner, producing residential and institutional work all over Australia. Although he does not work outside the country, or run a large firm, his work has a worldwide influence, especially since Murcutt teaches master classes for beginning and established architects.

Murcutt's motto, 'touch the earth lightly', convinces him to design his works to fit into the Australian landscape features. His works are highly economical and multi-functional. Murcutt also pays attention to the environment such as wind direction, water movement, temperature and light surrounding his sites before he designs the building itself. Materials such as glass, stone, timber and steel are often included in his works.

Testament to his influence internationally was the award of the 2002 Pritzker Prize one of the highest distinctions in architecture. In the words of the Pritzker jury: "In an age obsessed with celebrity, the glitz of our 'starchitects', backed by large staffs and copious public relations support, dominate the headlines. As a total contrast, Murcutt works in a one-person office on the other side of the world ... yet has a waiting list of clients, so intent is he to give each project his personal best. He is an innovative architectural technician who is capable of turning his sensitivity to the environment and to locality into forthright, totally honest, non-showy works of art." In 2009 Murcutt won the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Murcutt

Glenn Murcutt

In the next wave of emerging technology, the built environments which define our work, play, and habitation will be transformed by a connected set of data-­rich elements. More than just the natural outcome of the sensor-laden Internet of Things, this change of the places we inhabit into interconnected, intelligent, and even responsive spaces will impact us in innumerable ways. What kinds of new relationships will we build along with our architecture? In this episode of The Digital Life, we explore that question and others with Erin Rae Hoffer, an industry strategist, business evangelist, and thought leader on new technologies at Autodesk.

The Digital Life - Episode 61 - Architecture as Interface

UTL - Podcast Margit Mayer

Architect Jeremy McLeod established Breathe Architecture in 2001 after working for a couple of large Melbourne practices; SJB & Fender Katsalidis. 

Keen to start his own practice, with a strong sustainable bent, McLeod has continued to push the architectural boundaries. His latest project, a development of 24 apartments in Brunswick, known as The Commons, is a new direction in apartment living.

Jeremy McLeod, Architect - Talking Design 2014 Ep 10

Our new podcast, Archinect Sessions: One-to-One is an interview show, straight-up. Each episode features a single interview with a notable figure in contemporary architecture – it's that simple. Usually, One-to-One will be led by me or Paul Petrunia, while occasionally others will serve as guide. The conversation will be casual and spontaneous, touching on the interviewee's role in the expanding range of architectural practice, and will serve (we hope) a valuable archival role in future discourse.

For our very first episode, I spoke with Neil Denari of Neil M. Denari Architects (NMDA). Aside from his firm's work, Denari is a tenured professor at UCLA, and was the director of SCI-Arc from 1997 - 2001. We spoke about the shifting focus of architecture education, multitasking, Los Angeles and the recession's impact on architecture.

Premiere Episode of Archinect Sessions One-to-One with Neil Denari

The work of the German architect Jürgen Mayer H stands at the intersection of architecture, design and digital technology. His practice operates across scale and typology: from master-planning to buildings, product design to art.

For Mayer, emerging media and materials allow a fundamental rethinking of how we understand space and the potential for new forms of human activity and communication. Mayer kicked off the season with a discussion of his work and its reflection on the potential for architecture to act as a conduit for freedom through participation and social interactivity.

Image caption: Jürgen Mayer H © Joseph Wolfgang Ohlert

Architecture and freedom: Jürgen Mayer H

Architect and theorist, Patrik Schumacher, considers the various parameters for architectural practice today. One of architecture’s foremost designers and polemicists, Schumacher is a director of Zaha Hadid Architects, which he joined in 1988, and is involved in all the practice’s projects, playing an active role in each phase of design development.

He has taught at architecture schools across the world and has been co-director of the Design Research Laboratory at the Architectural Association since 1996. His writings have frequently appeared in print and across the media. In this lecture, Schumacher reflects on the range of issues and agendas that “burden” architecture in the twenty-first century.

Image caption: Patrik Schumacher / Courtesy Zaha Hadid Architects

Architecture and freedom: Patrik Schumacher

In this podcast, our expert panel consider what architecture’s responsibilities should be to the public good and whether it is time for architects to adopt a new code of ethics.

Today with architecture in thrall to private interests to a greater degree than perhaps ever before, it is time to reassess architects’ responsibilities beyond those to the client, and to the broader public good. Do architecture and architects require a new code of ethics? If so, what should be the parameters and who should decide them?

Speakers include Jane Hall, founding member of Turner prize-winning Assemble and Christine Murray, editor of Architectural Review (chair).

Image caption: Tower construction © Artur Bogacki/Alamy

Architecture and freedom: Architectural Ethics

In this podcast, Reiner de Graaf reflects on architecture’s different roles in today’s globalised world. An architect, academic and writer, de Graaf is a partner of OMA and director of AMO, the practice’s think tank and research studio based in Rotterdam. AMO’s work extends beyond architecture to encompass media, politics, sociology, renewable energy, technology, fashion, curating, publishing, and graphic design.

In addition to his work for AMO, De Graaf is responsible for a number of the OMA’s building and master-planning projects in Europe, Russia, and the Middle East. In this lecture, de Graaf considers architecture’s social, economic and political role in today’s globalised world.

Image caption: Reinier de Graaf © Ekaterina Izmestieva/ Strelka Institute

Architecture and freedom: Reinier De Graaf

Spaces of freedom are typically seen as synonymous with public space, where freedom of assembly and expression are inherent rights. Increasingly, though, public space, especially in cities, is being eroded by private, often commercially driven forces. At the same time, we have seen the rise of the digital realm heralded as a new free and democratic space for self-expression and debate.

This, however, is also under attack through both corporate and state-sponsored surveillance and data collection. While services on the Internet are “free” to use, the business models that sustain them depend on the collecting and commercialisation of our every digital interaction.

Image caption: Granary Square, Kings Cross © Monica Wells/Alamy

Architecture and Freedom: Spaces Of Freedom

In the final lecture of the series, Farshid Moussavi discusses architecture’s function as an agent in shaping everyday life. For Moussavi, architecture “produces platforms for the way people engage with uses of buildings” – an idea which she has explored through practice, education and research.

A co-founder of Foreign Office Architects, which won international attention with the Yokohama Ferry Terminal, Moussavi established her own practice in 2011, which has since completed the acclaimed Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art in Ohio. Moussavi is Professor in Practice of Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and has published a number of books deriving from her research and teaching.

Image caption: Farshid Moussavi RA © Dan Stevens

Architecture and freedom: Farshid Moussavi

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Architecture and freedom: Architectural Ethics

Royal Academy of Arts