architect, verb

architect, verb

Architecture is a future-oriented practice; quick to conceptualise and slow to materialise; often late – or, otherwise, too early. Actions of architecture are inherently speculative, constantly navigating a world of uncertainty and change. Today, in practice and in education, mirrors have turned towards architecture itself inviting critique and speculation about the future of architectural practice and putting to question its values and influence. These questions drive the history & theory module, Architectural Future(s), on MSci Year 4, where students and guests discuss different ‘domains of change’ impacting (or impacted by) architecture. In this public episode of Architectural Future(s), our guest, Reinier de Graaf, will share his thoughts on some of these notions with students and a wider audience.

The event is organised by Architecture MSci for the cluster programmes Architecture BSc,  Architecture MArch and Engineering and Architectural Design MEng and includes a poster exhibition and a student-led discussion panel.

This event is first come, first served with limited capacity. 

This event will also be streamed to Zoom:

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How to build world-class, award winning, creative, innovative, sustainable, liveable and beautiful spaces that foster a sense of place and wellbeing

 Be it sci-fi megastructures in the Middle East or historicist towns in the UK, new projects are invariably marketed with the same buzzwords: “world-class”, “award-winning”, “creative”, “innovative”, “sustainable”, “livable”, “beautiful” or fostering “a sense of place and wellbeing”. What is the significance of such terms? When does a building warrant the label “world-class”? Why is one city more “liveable” than the next? What is the meaning of “innovation” in architecture? And what building can credibly claim to improve anyone's “wellbeing”?

If De Graaf’s debut book Four Walls and a Roof was about debunking myths within the architecture profession, architect, verb aims to debunk myths projected onto architecture by the outside world – a rebuttal of doctrines which have been applied to architecture over the last twenty years. The incorporation of extraneous terms such as “livability”, “innovation” or “wellbeing” into the glossary of architecture is part of an ongoing trend in which the language to debate architecture is less and less architects' own, and more and more that of outside forces imposing outside expectations. Once a profession known for its manifestos, architecture finds itself increasingly forced to adopt ever-more extreme postures of virtue, held accountable by the world of finance, the social sciences or the medical sector.

Reinier de Graaf

Reinier de Graaf (1964, Schiedam) is a Dutch architect and writer. He is a partner in the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and the co-founder of its think-tank AMO. Reinier is the author of Four Walls and a Roof: The Complex Nature of a Simple Profession, the novel The Masterplan, and the recently published architect, verb. He lives in Amsterdam.

Image: Cover of architect, verb, by Reinier de Graaf (2023).