Conversations. A project to learn from the lived experience of those those shaping contemporary practice.

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HERMANSSON HILLER LUNDBERG (SWEDEN)

In this episode Andrew interviews Andreas and Samuel from Stockholm based Hermansson Hiller Lundberg Architects.

Their practice is concerned with the capacity for contemporary construction for expression - and they explore structure and a close reading of context to make characterful and beautifully considered work at a wide variety of scales.

The work speaks eloquently of our time, and draws on deep traditions in architecture - seeking expressive qualities in contemporary construction techniques. Here they speak about how they balance this careful ‘present tense’ aspect of their work, against the necessary vagaries of construction today.

https://www.hhl.se

MILINDA PATHIRAJA (SRI LANKA)

In this episode Simon Henley interviews Milinda Pathiraja.

Milinda's is a director and co-founder of Robust Architecture Workshop, a practice based in Sri Lanka, and concerned with developing new means for architecture to operate there. The term 'Robust' is key, its meaning to Milinda representing architectures ability to develop a resilience by a clear sighted engagement with the world - eschewing the brittleness that comes from autonomous conversations, and making its languages from a bottom up approach, one with tolerance at its heart. Here tolerance is a calling to an architecture which is sited in the specifics of the architects context, and the needs of the project - encompassing material behaviours but also much more, including the lives and futures of those engaged with its making.

https://www.facebook.com/robustarchitectureworkshop/

GRAFTON ARCHITECTS (IRELAND)

In this episode Nana Biamah Ofosu and Andrew Clancy interview Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell of Grafton Architects.

Nana is a tutor in the Kingston School of Art, leading studies into precedent and the lessons found in territorial Ghanaian architecture as part of her Second Year Studio.

Grafton Architects are the current Pritzker Laureates, an accolade that arrives as they appear to be gathering pace with a remarkable series of university buildings completed in the last few years, and more on the way. At the heart of Graftons practice is a concern for the human aspects of architecture - how it is made, how it affects those who use it, and how it speaks to the society that it forms a part of. In this discussion Shelley and Yvonne discuss their education, those critical first few projects, and how they have navigated their career since then. They reflect on the sensibilities that underlie their remarkable buildings, and what they see as key challenges facing the disipline today.

https://www.graftonarchitects.ie/

SIMON HENLEY (UK)

In this episode Andrew Clancy speaks with Simon Henley of Henley Halebrown Architects. Simon is an educator and a practitioner, and has written several books about architecture, most recently ‘Redefining Brutalism’ - which seeks to redefine the subject beyond style, and to capture its sensibility as a living language of architecture with robustness as its core principle.

Today their explorations into the language of architecture are being teased out via a series of remarkable housing projects, one of which (Chadwick Hall) was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize (the UKs highest award for architecture) last year.

http://henleyhalebrown.com/

CATHY HAWLEY (UK)

In this episode Andrew Clancy chats with the architect and educator Cathy Hawley.

Cathy Haley started her professional career with the art and architecture collaborative muf, moved on to doing remarkable housing projects as a founding partner of Riches Hawley Mikhail, and now works with Public Practice to embed critical thinking about context and character into the development plans of a series of towns. Wherever she has worked she has brought a clarity of insight, valuing the unseen and the overlooked along with more obvious aspects, to make a singular contribution in each place.

This is true also of her work as an educator - in which she seeks to tease out her students ability to see in an enabling fashion - both for their own careers as architects, and in relation to how they make work.

She is a winner of the RIBA Stirling prize, RIBA Rome prize and numerous other accolades.

http://www.cathyhawley.co.uk/about.php

NICHOLAS OLSBERG (UK)

In this episode Laura Evans and Matt Wells talk with the Historian and curator Nicholas Olsberg.

Nicholas is a former director of the Canadian Centre of Architecture, and is a prolific writer. He has curated many exhibitions about architects and architecture and in this conversation shares his views about the role of the curator in this context. In particular he speaks about the need to make exhibitions which present those visiting with vivid moments of engagement with the subject - a particular challenge in architecture when by necessity only an alibi for the subject the visitor will be engaging with.