Interviews With Architects, Artists & Designers

Hans Ulrich Obrist is a curator and artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries in London. This episode features Part 2 of his interview for Scaffold. (Listen to part 1 here). "There is a different kind of time in the studio of artists […] time almost gets suspended when I do a studio visit, which is a major aspect of how I break with routine and liberate time. Artists are world builders, and so you travel into another world." – HUOScaffold is an Architecture Foundation production, hosted by Matthew Blunderfield. Download the London Architecture Guide App via the App Store or Google Play Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hans Ulrich Obrist is a curator and Artistic Director of the Serpentine Galleries in London. "We need protected spaces for art, yes – that's why we have museums – but we need also to find ways to actually go from from the gallery space to the park, into the city, and into society…curating is about building bridges between art and society, and I’ve always believed we need to create this kind of experience for people”Scaffold is an Architecture Foundation production, hosted by Matthew Blunderfield Download the London Architecture Guide App via the App Store or Google Play Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rural Urban Framework is a research and design collaborative based at the University of Hong Kong, directed by Joshua Bolchover and John Lin. Conducted as a non-profit organization designing for charities and NGOs working in China, RUF has built over 15 projects in various villages in China including schools, community centers, hospitals, village houses, bridges, and incremental planning strategies. Of course, much has changed in China since John and Joshua began their practice - the rural to urban migration emblematic of china’s development over the past several decades is now reversing following changes in government policy as well as massive economic and cultural shifts, which has caused Joshua and John to adapt and reorient their practice in different directions. While they still co-direct Rural Urban Framework, Josh is also director of the District Development Unit, which focuses on the growth of developing regions in Mongolia, Nepal and the Philippines, while John has established a postgraduate pro

Tosin Oshinowo is a Lagos-based architect and curator of the 2023 Sharjah Architecture Triennial. Titled "The beauty of Impermanence, an Architecture of Adaptability," this year’s triennial considers design solutions built from conditions of scarcity and explores how this might impact sustainable design today. This interview was recorded in Sharjah during the opening weekend of the Triennial in mid November 2023, and the conversation began by addressing the triennial itself, before unfolding into a more personal discussion of the contradictions that emerge between the exhibition and Oshinowo's practice.---Book tickets for upcoming Architecture on Stage lectures by Duncan Lewis (Tuesday November 21st) and Sam Chermayeff with Jack Self (Wednesday November 29th). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RESOLVE is the Croydon-based collective practice of Akil Scafe-Smith, Seth Scafe-Smith and Melissa Haniff. “We want people to look at our work and think: “I could do that” - if it means it doesn’t look amazing, and it can’t go on dezeen, so be it. There has to the mark of people on these structures, and the mistakes of people too. That is a fundamental part of our work.”Scaffold is an Architecture Foundation production, hosted by Matthew Blunderfield.Download the London Architecture Guide App via the App Store or on Google Play Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Scaffold is on holiday this week – instead here's an interview with the IG architecture meme account Dank Lloyd Wright recorded last year for the podcast Power and Public Space, co-produced by Drawing Matter and the Architecture Foundation. A new Scaffold interview with Resolve Collective will air in two weeks ✌️ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Theo de Meyer is an architect based in Ghent. His work moves between architecture, design and the arts, often reconciling the various disciplines. He and doorzon interieur architecten together represent the core of the modular collective Stand Van Zaken (‘State of Affairs’), who create furniture and architecture in collaboration with specialists in various fields. Scaffold is an Architecture Foundation production, hosted by Matthew BlunderfieldDownload the London Architecture Guide App via the App Store or on Google Play Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tony Fretton founded his eponymous architecture practice in 1982. His early work in London, including the Lisson Gallery (1986-1992), was influential in defining a new approach to architecture focused on urban context and daily life.“By the time I graduated, London was completely different. It wasn’t opulent, it was poor, and punk was an attitude that accepted the nihilism of the state and of the city. All those songs by the Sex Pistols, they rang true, they weren’t just inventions. Punk was really important to me - punks were ethical, they had an idea of the world and it was about make and mend, about living in the margins, and that was the background from which I developed my practice.” – TFScaffold is an Architecture Foundation production, hosted by Matthew BlunderfieldDownload the London Architecture Guide App via the App Store or on Google Play Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tony Fretton founded his eponymous architecture practice in 1982. His early work in London, including the Lisson Gallery (1986-1992), was influential in defining a new approach to architecture focused on urban context and daily life. “By the time I graduated, London was completely different. It wasn’t opulent, it was poor, and punk was an attitude that accepted the nihilism of the state and of the city. All those songs by the Sex Pistols, they rang true, they weren’t just inventions. Punk was really important to me - punks were ethical, they had an idea of the world and it was about make and mend, about living in the margins, and that was the background from which I developed my practice.” – TFScaffold is an Architecture Foundation production, hosted by Matthew Blunderfield Download the London Architecture Guide App via the App Store or on Google Play Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Luke Jones and George Gingell are hosts of the podcast About Buildings and Cities. "We’re interested in getting into things that are obscure [in architectural history], but we’re also interested in looking at things that are super obvious. […] Taking Gaudi for example, he’s the world’s favourite architect, and he’s also curiously elusive and totally unfashionable - like kitch embarrassing tea-towel stuff. At the same time, he is such a strange and virtuosic designer. We’re interested in trying to make sense of that thing that seems so obvious it’s almost embarrassing to talk about." Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Bowling is Professor of Criminology at at Kings College London, and the son of the celebrated painter Frank Bowling, whose studio he now manages. "Frank always wanted children, but did not want to be a father, because of his own father’s violence; by being an absent father through my infancy and childhood, Frank allowed me to re-write the script of fatherhood."One thing that is joyous about working in the studio is being able to involve my son, who’s now in his 30’s, and his son, who’s two and a half. The fact that we now have four generations of male Bowlings in the studio, coming together around the work, is a source of joy. It’s almost like we disrupted this old pattern of what fatherhood should be."Scaffold is an Architecture Foundation production, hosted by Matthew Blunderfield Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Asli Çiçek is an Architect and writer based in Brussels, whose work focuses on scenography and exhibition design. "Culture is not a luxury. I don’t like populistic discussions about what culture should be or how history should be flattened to a quick communication. I think it’s fantastic to not understand everything at once, to keep the fascination for history and culture alive in museums […] "There is no shame in having culture. If there’s a debate I silently follow, it’s that there is a necessity for culture in society – not only as an egalitarian concept, but as an educational concept. That is something I try to stand for."Scaffold is an Architecture Foundation production, hosted by Matthew Blunderfield. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Charlotte Cooper is the author of Poundbury: a Queer Tour of Monarchy, published earlier this year by 33 Editions. "One of my bugbears about Poundbury is that it’s not an honest place – it’s pretending to be something that it isn’t. They talk about how green it is, how it is invested in traditional building techniques, but it’s also breeze blocks, it’s plastic, it’s a great place to park your car […] My question is, if you could, what would bring the truth our of Poundbury, what would show it for what it is?"Scaffold is an Architecture Foundation production, hosted by Matthew Blunderfield Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Robin Winogrond is a Landscape Architect based in Zurich."I try to never look at what I expect to see, but to see in a raw way, in an uninformed way, I try to read space and atmospheres in the most unschooled way I can, to soak up as much knowledge as I can." – RWScaffold is an Architecture Foundation production, hosted by Matthew Blunderfield Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Karin Templin is an architect, educator, and author of the book At Home in London: The Mansion Block, co-published by The Architecture Foundation and MACK. This book is first in a series on types of London housing, reflecting on the place of the home in the city in the light of its longstanding housing crisis. To find out more visit mackbooks.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode originally aired in April 2022. Lesley Lokko is founder of the African Futures Institute and curator of the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale.“I don’t see myself as being ‘the future’, but the expanded field [of architecture] that I’ve operated in for most of my life has given me something that is of use to he generation coming behind me, so that no matter how I end up making my living, I see myself first and foremost as a teacher.”Scaffold is an Architecture Foundation production. For more information visit https://www.architecturefoundation.org.uk/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sumayya Vally is a Musilm South African architect, and founder of the practice Counterspace. “Architecture is abstract, and I think what I’m doing in my practice is making a concerted effort to find different sources for the origins of that abstraction. I think what has happened in the cannon and in the profession more broadly is that we’ve inherited so much that we don’t deeply question…I think the languages that we’ve inherited could do with being supplemented or oven being overtaken, dare I say, by other origins, that come from different ways of being and different value systems.”– SVScaffold is an Architecture Foundation production, hosted by Matthew Blunderfield. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

David Gissen is a New York-based author, designer, and educator who works in the fields of architecture, landscape, and urban design. His book, The Architecture of Disability (University of Minnesota Press, 2023) has been praised as “an exhilarating manifesto” and a “complete reshaping about how we view the development and creation of architecture.” The Architecture of Disability offers a critical perspective on histories and futures of buildings, cities, and landscapes — beyond a sole focus on the problems of accessibility.Scaffold is an Architecture Foundation production, hosted by Matthew Blunderfield Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

b+ is a collaborative architecture practice that operates across different media and formats. The practice seeks to engage with challenges of eco-social transformation and adaptive reuse, and to contribute to the societal transformation with ecologically and economically viable answers.“Why does the political right have better propaganda than the left? It’s perhaps because the right is situated in the 'no' – the 'yes' is much more difficult to propagandise. It’s therefore necessary to find positive claims that can be engaged with almost instantaneously – in a way, that’s the architectural project”  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Julian Opie is an artist based in London. We create models to deal with the world and to function in the world. It’s how we perceive the world and our own life and existence, drawing from the world a language that can then be shared and used to talk about existence – JOScaffold is an Architecture Foundation production, hosted by Matthew Blunderfield Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.