Design Theory, Adolf Loos, Modernism:
William Tozer, 'A Theory of Making: Architecture and Art in the Practice of Adolf Loos,' doctoral thesis, University College London (2011).

ABSTRACT:
Adolf Loos repeatedly discusses the role of art in relation to architecture in his essays, but many of his statements appear either repetitive or inconsistent with one another, and are difficult to reconcile with his buildings. Considering Loos’s writing and built work together, rather than separately, suggests that instead of being fully formulated as a methodology and then implemented in practice, Loos’s argument emerges serially and in a piecemeal fashion with the progressive development of his buildings through practice—a theory of making. The line of enquiry into the historical and theoretical material is informed by the division of my own design work in practice into sculptural components and furnishings. The research proceeds on the hypothesis that Loos similarly divided each of his buildings into discrete elements that he either understood as art, or considered functional—and that he deployed ornament to signal the latter, rather than the former. This hypothesis is investigated by tracing the origin and development in his built projects of a number of particular components of the Müller House, in relation to the emergence and revision of specific aspects of Loos’s written argument on art and architecture in the essays contemporaneous with these buildings. The investigations are structured by reference to the distinct qualities of each component as identified through the design research, focusing on Composite House. While the research method is specific to my own design work in practice, the investigation is structured so as to produce autonomous outcomes in relation to Loos and modernism, which are meaningful when decoupled from this field data. Loos has to date been predominantly examined through conceptions of modernism as the expression of function, structure, technology or society; however, it is argued here that modern architecture could conversely be understood, through Loos, as a form of art practice.

The thesis can be viewed or downloaded here:
http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1331912/

A full version of the thesis, including copyright images, is held at the UCL library, University College London, UK.

Design Practice and Pedagogy: 

William Tozer, ‘A Theory of Making: Methodology and Process in Architectural Practice,’ Architectural Research Quarterly, (Cambridge University Press, volume 12, 2008): 134–148.

This paper was presented at the University of Sheffield Alternate Currents symposium and is drawn from research I conducted through the Bartlett's PhD by design programme, titled 'A Theory of Making: Methodology versus Process in Architectural Practice'. The research aims to examine the gap between what architects say they do and what they actually do, and its relation to the gap between the architectural profession and academia. The call for papers for Alternate Currents implied an assumption of a single and well-understood definition of ‘normative practice’ before calling for investigations of and proposals for alternative modes of practice. It was also suggested that these modes are likely to have explicit social and political agendas or define themselves outside of the professional realm of the architect. This paper sets out to challenge the symposium’s assumptions about both normative practice and alternative practice. An historical case study of alternative practice is utilized to re-read the nature of architectural production since the modern period, and a contemporary mode of alternative practice is then proposed that operates within the established profession but informed by this alternative reading. This is a mode of alternative practice that remains fully engaged with the production of the built environment, utilizing to its advantage rather than resisting the mechanisms of the profession.

‘Normative practice’ seems to be generally understood by academia as the production of drawings and other representations by registered professional architects working in offices, with the intention of their contents being constructed as buildings. This understanding is reinforced by the professional institutes, whose structures of registration and professional development posit design as a practical rather than intellectual undertaking. Against this background, academia defines ‘alternate practice’ as a variation of the above where the process is motivated by an agenda—or more broadly, as any form of architectural activity that does not result in the production of buildings. If normative practice is recognized as agendized, alternate practice identifies its agendas as outmoded and proposes their replacement. Aside from drawings, models and other representations, the processes of normative practice are assumed by academia to be creatively neutral, and so they are given only professional rather than intellectual consideration. Due to academia’s intellectual focus on drawing and modeling, its observations on practice are generally limited to an ‘avant-garde’ whose stated design methodologies foreground these concerns and are recognizably intellectualized. Implicit in this process is an assumption that the limitations of ‘normative practice’ stem from the profession and its professional bodies, but not academia. It is argued here that a definition of ‘normative practice’ is required to interrogate the assumptions of both the profession and academia in order to be productively critical, rather than simply exacerbating their retreat into autonomous realms. The identification of what is currently normative by these terms requires a critical reflection upon what is generally considered avant-garde, rather than the comfortable consignment of each other’s entire field as ‘normative’ and one’s own as ‘alternative’. In these terms, to both the profession and academia, contemporary ‘normative practice—as it pertains to architects and their relation to the built environment—could be described as the valorization of large-scale building and novelty of form-making; and reciprocally related predilections for large practices, the competition format, and apparent conceptual complexity.

This conception sets aside definitions of architecture that do not pertain to the built environment, but this should not be understood as an attempt to diminish the importance of the separation between the professional and academic realms. It is acknowledged that this separation provides a useful distance in every discipline, allowing academia time for reflection and experimentation free from the constraints and limitations of the profession. The implications of academic experimentation and reflection for architectural practice may not be immediately clear, but this does not diminish its potential importance. However, when academia sets out to redefine its own operations as practice, its research as an end in itself, or to dismiss all of most of the entire production of the profession, there is a danger that it will become an increasingly autonomous field focused on self-reflexive relations to its own body of knowledge, and ever-diminishing relations to its original subject—the built environment. While one could make an argument for such an autonomous discipline as an intellectual field, the problems of the built environment remain unaddressed. Furthermore, it could be argued that this form of investigation constitutes a normative form of academic architectural practice, connected to the normative model of the profession identified above. If academia is to have significant implications for the built environment, the unwillingness of practicing architects’ to engage with academic notions of architecture cannot be dismissed as entirely a failing of the profession. Rather, this would require academia to engage with the issues of the profession, and connect its own body of knowledge with these themes. Through understanding its own mechanisms and potential, architecture could develop modes of operation that are resonant with them, rather than adjunctive—aligning design processes with stated methodologies, and academic and professional understandings of the discipline. 

In the introduction to The Reflective Practitioner, Donald Schön argues that ‘[Universities] are institutions committed, for the most part, to a particular epistemology, a view of knowledge that fosters selective inattention to practical competence and professional artistry.’ Conversely, Schön explains that, ‘It is as though the practitioner says to his academic colleague, ‘While I do not accept your view of knowledge, I cannot describe my own’’ and concludes that, ‘These attitudes have contributed to a widening rift between the universities and the profession, research and practice, thought and action’.[ii] The very labeling of practice as ‘normative’ is indicative of a polarization of academia and practice into autonomous fields. While architectural academia is too readily dismissed by practitioners because it fails to address most of the problematic issues involved in practicing architecture, most aspects of practice are generally dismissed by academia because they do not appear worthy of intellectual consideration. Academia focuses the vast majority of its intellectual attention on design, and gives only ‘professional’ consideration to the other subject areas required for practice. Architects’ relationships with their clients, other professionals, contractors—and with one another—are generally understood in academia as creatively neutral, and unrelated to architectural design. These facets of practice are viewed as practical rather than intellectual, and an investigation of their role in the design process is dismissed in favour of the introduction of material from outside the discipline of architecture that is more recognizably intellectual. In The Projective Cast, Robin Evans laments architecture’s tendency to draw upon mathematics, the natural sciences, the human sciences, painting, and literature, and asks ‘Why is it not possible to derive a theory of architecture from a consideration of architecture?’[iii] Like all creative disciplines, architecture benefits immensely from its relationships with other fields, but it can be argued that architecture does so at the expense of a full understanding …


Full article available to subscribers here:
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=1995808

Borgos Dance: William Tozer, ‘Louise T Blouin Institute: West London,’ Detail, English edition (January/February 2007): 14­–15.

The Louise T Blouin Institute is a new privately-funded arts and cultural space in west London. The project was initiated by French Canadian Arts Publisher Louise T Blouin McBain, and designed by architects Borgos Dance.

Simon Dance and Etienne Borgos founded their practice in 2001 after working in the offices of minimalist John Pawson and the high-tech Norman Foster respectively. The influence of both practices is evident in the projects of Borgos Dance, but their work has a distinct character of its own and clearly draws from a broader frame of reference. They currently have offices in both London and Barcelona and their practice encompasses architecture, interiors, and furniture. They commenced work on the Louise T Blouin Institute in 2004 after previously designing a number of art fair exhibition stands and then offices for her publishing company, LTB Media.

The building occupies an Edwardian warehouse on a site sandwiched between council housing and a busy highway. While this location might seem an appropriately marginalised location for a gallery, this is a well-connected arts institution and its location also registers this in its proximity to the affluent areas of Notting Hill and Holland Park. Previous occupations of the site have included the manufacturing of coaches for London’s royals and aristocrats and car bodies for Rolls Royce, and more recently offices for design and advertising companies.

Load-bearing masonry piers and arches over the windows have been rebuilt to reorder the façade. This reordering is to some extent simply a rationalization of the modifications carried out to the building through its various occupations, but it could also be understood as an attempt to maximize the building’s iconic appearance as industrial architecture. This symbolism of industry is clearly a more important allusion for this new arts institute than the messiness of the intervening occupations. On the interior these window openings are treated in an even more iconic fashion, reduced to abstract shapes in the massive and planar envelope of the building. This is facilitated by the internal lining of the building to accommodate concealed insulation, air-conditioning, lighting and blinds. The traditional composition of panes to the new aluminum-framed double glazed windows further recalls the historical function of the building.

Working with Arup Engineering, Borgos Dance have removed all of the columns from the ground floor by suspending lightweight floors for the upper levels from two 27 metre long, 2.5 metre high roof trusses. The resulting free-space of the ground floor heightens the dominance of the iconic image of a factory space by enabling views from one end of the 42 metre long building to the other. Maintaining this abstract quality, a displacement air-conditioning system is concealed beneath the power-floated concrete of the ground floor, while the ceilings throughout are treated with a render system to improve acoustic performance. Triple-height clear glazing at the junction of the floors and one of the elevations heightens this sense by enabling an unbroken view of the window openings.

A grid of beams to the 10.5 metre high entry space allows for the support of large works of art. This triple-height space punctuates a visitor’s entry to the building, creating an interior space at the scale of the exterior streetscape. From this space one moves either into the 4 metre high main gallery space or into the café, which possesses something of the quality of an exterior space through its positioning outside the monolithic form of the main building and the incorporation of a fully-glazed roof. While the angled wall of the entry space functions to announce the imposition of a new function within the existing building, the curved wall of the café space seems somewhat incongruous with the geometry of the rest of the project.

Glare and black-out blinds to all of the windows are automated to respond to the sun to control lighting conditions in the gallery spaces. While each of the window sills incorporates a lighting feature by American artist James Turrell, the varying degrees of opacity created by the architects’ use of blinds also recalls the artist’s work. The abstract, massive and planar appearance of the windows and shadows and silhouette that they produce also resonate with the work of Turrell, whose work filled the gallery spaces for the opening of the Institute. The building’s plant is concealed behind a polycarbonate screen on the roof of the building, also illuminated by Turrell. This screen encloses two translucent glass roof-lights that bring natural light into the top floor. Like the roof of the café space, their sloped form and visible fixings circumvent an abstract resonance, but nonetheless this roof glazing recalls Turrell’s Skyspaces.

The sparseness of the Louise T Blouin Institute and a number of other recent gallery projects in London could be interpreted as a reaction against more obviously figured or spectacular proposals for art projects. However, to describe The Institute as a blank canvas because of its lack of overt formal gymnastics would be to exclude the possibility of more subtle forms of figure or spectacle. Like Caruso St John’s recent Gagosian gallery in London’s Kings Cross, the Louise T Blouin Institute is no less sculptural than Herzog and de Meuron’s proposal for the extension of the Tate Modern, but rather its sculptural gestures operate and at different scales. The Louise T Blouin Institute resonates particularly with the work of James Turrell but will undoubtedly also provide a provocative context for the work of many other artists. In this sense the building should not be seen as a rebuke of the importance of the architectural diagram, but rather an example of the importance of the relationship between an architectural diagram and architectural detail.


Project images available here:
http://www.simondancedesign.com/projects/louise-blouin-foundation/?category=1category=2

Herzog and de Meuron: William Tozer, ‘Character Lines: Herzog and de Meuron’s CaixaForum,’ Monument, issue 89 (February/March 2009): 82–89.

The new Caixaforum building by Pritzker Prize-winning architects Herzog and de Meuron shares its site with an historic existing building. The removal of this building would undoubtedly have reduced the construction cost of the project, and little more than the original facade remains. However, the dynamic relationship between the two types of architecture creates a potent composition.

Rusted steel forms the facade of the new building, and its orange shade of brown sets up a visual relationship with the faded terracotta and brick of the original building, without resorting to the familiar conservationist device of matching materials. The form of the addition makes a similar allusion to the original building, extrapolating the pitch of the gabled roofs into forms that pitch and crank in three dimensions. The ornamental quality of this form, and the surface perforations with which it is detailed, perform an analogous role to the surface decoration that adorns the original building. Increasing the height of the building establishes a less diminutive relationship with its contemporary neighbours, and the greenery treatment of the adjacent elevation of one of the neighbouring buildings reinforces the connection of the abstract building form to its context. The language and materiality of the new facade is carried through into some areas of the interior—such as the subterranean auditorium—which is otherwise composed of a contrasting vocabulary of white and steel elements articulated in rectilinear, curvilinear and folded geometry. Within the original building the interaction of the interior with the exterior takes the form of visually neutral frameless glazing, which does not match but is proportional to the removed traditional fenestration. Above the level of the original building, however, the new building envelope takes the form of orthodox black-framed window openings. This gesture seems more convincing where it assumes a relatively neutral rectilinear form, rather than deferring to the geometry of the rusted facade, such as in the stairwell. Plain white surfaces are largely reserved for the predominantly rectilinear walls and ceilings of the galleries and ancillary spaces, but are also applied to the more overtly sculptural curvilinear staircase. The installation of lighting into the underside of this staircase—rather than illuminating it from the adjacent walls or floor as is the case elsewhere in the building—somewhat diminishes its sculptural quality. Folded geometry is deployed in some areas of the gallery walls, but most extensively in conjunction with the raw steel sheeting to the ceiling of the external undercroft of the building.

The undercroft space is the most dramatic spatial gesture of the project, and is reminiscent of the architects’ earlier Barcelona Forum (Monument 64). It creates an outdoor public space connected to the street and adjoining square, providing cover from rain or harsh sunshine for snaking queues of visitors. As with the earlier project, however, it seems curious that the programme of the interior of the building does not interact more with this space—an engaging spatial experience left largely uninhabited. This space opens onto open squares to both the north and south of the building, the former of which is framed by the wall of greenery described above, serving to appropriate this square more directly into the spatial ordering of the building. Internally, the spatial distribution could be described as a series of stacked open-plan floor plans, the lower of which have been given something of the character of landscapes through changes of level and meandering circulation. These open-plan spaces are punctuated by the stairwells, which create dramatic voids through the section.

This building is clearly part of a recent trajectory of Herzog and de Meuron projects that also includes the aforementioned Barcelona Forum, the de Young Museum in San Francisco, and the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis. The departure from the rectilinear geometry that characterised their earlier work has alienated many of their previous architectural admirers, but it has been argued by this author (Architectural Research Quarterly 12) that the partisan division of architects along lines of geometry stems from the accepted conception of modern architecture as rooted in issues of function, whereas fine art provides a more convincing explanation. The minor reservations about the Caixaforum expressed above to some extent stem from the fact that it is more difficult for architecture to convincingly function as art due to the way in which it is perceived by comparison to other mediums such as painting and sculpture. Herzog and de Meuron’s earlier buildings possess ambiguities between found object and designed object, and between function and art, allowing a degree of latitude to their perception as art objects. These ambiguities have become clear divisions in the more recent projects, and the success of these buildings is diminished to some degree at any points of contact between them that are less than perfectly handled.


Project images available here:
http://www.herzogdemeuron.com/index/projects/complete-works/201-225/201/IMAGE.html

Lubetkin: William Tozer, ‘Flat White,’ New Zealand Home and Entertaining, (February/March 2004): 68–73.

The Highpoint apartment building in London is still despised by many of the more conservative residents of the surrounding leafy streets of Highgate, but in the sixty-eight years since it was constructed, its admirers have steadily grown in number. Amongst these admirers is current Highpoint homeowner Linda Aitken, a New Zealander now running her own urban design practice in London. Designed by Russian émigré Berthold Lubetkin, the construction of the building was staunchly resisted by the same conservation organisation that now coordinates tours of the building during the annual London Open House week. While the building was lauded by the architectural cognoscenti from its inception, it is no surprise that the scheme met with strong objections from a borough that still prides itself on having much lower densities of residential development than other areas of London.

Lubetkin arrived in England from Paris in the early 1930s and formed the architectural practice Tecton. Alongside Peter Behrens and New Zealander Amyas Connell, Lubetkin provided the initial impetus for the British modern architectural movement. Lubetkin’s Tecton collaborator, Denys Lasdun went on to become a major figure in twentieth-century British architecture and the considerable influence of Lubetkin’s modernism is evident in buildings such as The Royal Festival Hall on London’s South Bank. Lubetkin’s Highpoint was the first major building block in this sphere of influence and is undoubtedly a seminal piece of British modernism. While the compact and sensitive interiors are reminiscent of the Villa Savoye by the Swiss luminary Le Corbusier, the clean lines and projecting balconies to the elevations recall the functionalism of the Bauhaus or the rationalism of Terragni. While not a true Corbusian roof-scape, the roof of Highpoint provides a fabulous vantage point from which to survey London. One of these views is framed almost photographically—just as in Corbusier’s Villa Savoye—with a window-like opening to a solid wall.

Born in New Zealand’s Hawkes Bay, Linda Aitken travelled to London in the early 1980s as part of six months ‘OE’. Two decades later, she now lives in London with her two sons and works as an ‘urbanist’, designing streetscapes and masterplans for English cities. ‘My anxiety about wanting to be an architect is long gone’, says Linda, reflecting upon her chosen profession and her education in town planning and urban design in Auckland and Edinburgh respectively. Her practice, Aitken Leclercq is currently working with renowned Dutch architects MVRDV on a master plan for Toxteth in the northern English city of Liverpool. It is Linda’s involvement in the design industry that makes her like-minded company for the increasing number of architects and designers who inhabit Highpoint. One of Linda’s neighbours is renowned architectural critic, Jeremy Melvin, whose apartment sits directly above hers.

Although the parents of the previous owners of Linda’s apartment had been friends of Lubetkin’s, it is clear that they did not have a particular affinity with the design of the building. As with many of the apartments, pelmets and heavy curtains had been added to disguise the sliding and folding steel windows, and chandeliers and a fake fireplace had been introduced to soften the clean modern lines of the rooms. However, most of the original features did remain intact, including steel-framed doors, custom-made door handles, built-in cupboards, ceramic tiles and cork flooring. Another revolutionary attribute of the building, which continues to be operational to this day, is the under-floor and ceiling heating. All of these original features are now protected by the Grade One Listed status of the building. An un-missable feature that Linda has added to the apartment seems strangely at home with the Lubetkin design—an enormous back-lit photograph of a Serge Chermayeff building, which fills an entire wall of the living space. Another pioneer of modern architecture, Chermayeff is best know in Britain for his collaboration with Eric Mendelsohn on the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea.

‘I think we’ve gone backwards’, says Linda, comparing the revolutionary spatial arrangements of early modern buildings like Highpoint with most contemporary architecture. She remarks that in spite of many people’s expectations, the compact, three-bedroom apartment is comfortable for her and her two sons due to its ingenious design. Moreover, with large shared gardens and a swimming pool, the building provides the closest approximation of a New Zealand environment that she can think of anywhere in London. The fact that her Highpoint apartment is drenched in sunlight during the short days of the English winter—at least by comparison to the terraced housing that dominates most of London—supports this observation.

Built-in washing chutes and service lifts to each apartment, and communal spaces on the ground floor indicate an ambition for a shared lifestyle born of the architect’s socialist ideology. The presence of maids’ quarters on the ground floor, however, suggests that these ambitions were interpreted through a bourgeois conception of this ideal, and the present occupation of the building in discreet dwellings belies this original aspiration. However, the growing population of architects, designers and architecturally aware inhabitants of the building has created a new sense of community at Highpoint. As Linda describes how she and several of her neighbours have discussed converting a small, unused ground-floor space into a communal library, it seems that Lubetkin’s social agenda for the building may yet be fulfilled.


Project images available here:
http://www.ArchitectureWeek.com/cgi-bin/awimage?dir=2003/0409&article=culture_1-1.html&image=12116_image_1.jpg

PUBLICATIONS

•over 80 published articles on architecture, and art, furniture and industrial and product design

                

2009
•contributing writer: Monument: ‘Character Lines: Herzog & de Meuron’s CaixaForum’, issue 89, feb/march 2009, p.82–89

2008
•paper published: Architectural Research Quarterly: ‘A Theory of Making: Methodology and Process in Architectural Practice’, Cambridge University Press, volume 12, 2008, p. 134–148

2007                 
•contributing writer: Detail: ‘Louise T Blouin Institute, West London’, English edition 1/2007, Jan–Feb, p. 14–15

2007–1999                
•London editor & correspondent, Monument (leading Australian architecture and design journal)

Adjaye & Russell: ‘London Social’, oct/nov, 1999, p.26–27; ‘A Detailed Revision’, residential special, 2000, p.32–39

David Adjaye: ‘Trash & Treasure’, residential special, 2003, p.42–46; 57A; Ofili 03; ‘Mind the Gap’, issue 65, feb/mar 2005, p.40–41; ‘David Adjaye Houses: Recycling, Reconfiguring, Rebuilding’, issue 68, aug/sep 2005, p.109; ‘Making Public Buildings’, issue 72, apr/may 2006, p. 103

Will Alsop: ‘Literary Glamour’, issue 41, apr/may 2001, p. 66–70

architectural photography: ‘Reconstructing Space: Architecture in Recent German Photography’, issue 31, aug/sep 1999

Arup: ‘All Change’; issue 68, aug/sep 2005, p.24–25

BHMA: ‘DIY sustainability’, residential special 2001, p.50–53

Gianna Botsford: ‘Deductive Design’, issue 74, aug–sep 2006, p.66–69

Caruso St John: ‘Coate House’, issue 50, aug/sep 2002, p.62–67; ‘Defence of the Realm’, residential special, 2005, p.26–30

Chetwood Associates: ‘Flight of Fancy’, issue 61, jun/jul 2004, p.72–77

David Chipperfield: ‘Crossing the Divide’, issue 58, dec/jan 2003/2004, p. 86–91

Peter Cook / Spacelab: ‘The Friendly Alien’, issue 60, apr/may 2004, p.46–52

David Dennis: ‘Coast Guard’, issue 70, dec/jan 2005/2006, p. 62–67

Alison Cooke: ‘Spongy or Prickly?’, issue 40, feb/mar 2001, p.20

Robin & Lucienne Day: ‘Robin & Lucienne Day: Pioneers of Contemporary Design’, issue 42, jun/jul 2001, p.108–109

Tom Dixon: ‘Tom Dixon’, issue 51, oct/nov 2002, p.81

El Ultimo Grito: ‘By Any Other Name’, issue 39, dec/jan 2000/2001, p.16–17; ‘One for the Road’, issue 44, oct/nov 2001, p.28

FAT: “FAT”, issue 51, oct/nov 2002, p.80

Sarah Featherstone: ‘Urban Insertion’, issue 43,aug/sep 2001, p.70–74

Foundation 33: ‘Design Plus’, issue 41, apr/may 2001, p. 20

Future Systems: ‘Open Range’, issue 67, jun/jul 2005, p.22–23

Norman Foster: ‘Made in Berlin’, issue 57, oct/nov 2003, p.22; ‘Urban Aspirations’, commercial special, dec 2002, p.22–28

Frank Gehry: ‘State of Plain’, issue 55, jun/jul 2003, p.20

Zaha Hadid: ‘The Futurist’, issue 57, oct/nov 2003, p.42–48; ‘Inner Light’, issue 79, jun/jul 2007 p.60–64

Happell Design: ‘It’s Organic’, issue 38, oct/nov 2000, p.20

Harper Mackay: ‘Through the Looking Glass’, issue 46, feb/mar 2002, p.24

Herzog & de Meuron: ‘Outside the Box’, issue 64, dec/jan 2004/2005, p.58–62

Hudson Featherstone: ‘Drop Out’, issue 50, apr/may 2002, p.50–55; ‘Fordham White’, issue 51, oct/nov 2002

Le Corbusier: ‘Chasing Le Corbusier’, issue 40, feb/mar 2001; ‘Modern Life’, issue 45, dec/jan 2001–2002, p.20–45

Daniel Libeskind: ‘Made in Berlin’, issue 57, oct/nov 2003, p.22; ‘The Graduate’, issue 62, aug/sep 2004, p.22–24

Adolf Loos: ‘Smoke & Mirrors’, issue 36, jun/jul 2000, p.19; ‘More or Loos’, issue 43, sug/sep 2001, p.20

MAK: ‘Un–private House’, issue 37, aug/sep

Mother: ‘Mother’, issue 51, oct/nov 2002, p. 82

MUF: ‘Open Range’, issue 67, jun/jul 2005, p.22–23

Simon Patterson: ‘Mind the Gap’, issue 65, feb/mar 2005, p.40–41

John Pawson: ‘White Knight’, issue 55, jun/jul 2003, p.90–95

Terence Riley: ‘Un-Private House’, issue 37, aug/sep 2000, p.108–109

Mies van der Rohe: ‘Barcelona Pavilion’, issue 51, oct/nov 2002, p.20; ‘Ludwig Mies van der Rohe: 1905–1938, Whitechapel Art Gallery’, issue 56, p.106–107, aug/sep 2003; ‘Made in Berlin’, issue 57, oct/nov 2003, p.22

William Russell: issue 49, “Global Odyssey”, issue 53, dec/jan 2002/2003, p.22–23; ‘How the Other Half Lives, issue 49, residential special 2002, p.58–62
Scharoun: ‘Made in Berlin’, issue 57, oct/nov 2003, p.22

Matthey Sheargold: ‘All That Gitters’, issue 48, jun/jul 2002, p.30

Nicholas Stevens: ‘Memory and Desire’, issue 32, oct/nov 1999, p.68–70

Sybarite: issue 68, aug/sep 2005, p.74

Tonkin, Zulaikha Greer & Janet Lawrence: ‘Drawn from Memory’, issue 59, feb/mar 2004, p.70–75

Turner Prize: ‘The Turner Prize’, issue 47, apr/may 2002, p.109; ‘Turner Prize, Tate Britain, London’, issue 54, apr/may 2003, p.108

Andrew Tye: ‘Tyed Up’, issue 44, oct/nov 2001, p.20

USE Architects: ‘Tall Order’, residential special, 2001, p.92–96

Victoria & Albert Museum exhibitions: ‘The Other Flower Show’, issue 62, aug/sep 2004, p.104–105

Andy Warhol: ‘Andy Warhol’, issue 48, jun/jul 2002, p.109

WHAT Architecture: ‘Playbox’, issue 76, dec–jan 2006/2007, p.86–89

Wigglesworth Till: ‘House of Straw’, issue 46, feb/mar 2002, p.56–61

100% Design & Designers Block: ‘Prototypes, Products and Provocation’, issue 39, dec/jan 2000–2001, p.80–83; ‘Centre of Attention’, issue 45, dec/jan 2001–2002, p.102; ‘London Calling’, issue 53, dec/jan 2002–2003, p.86–89; ’Eclectic Emporia’, issue

58, dec/jan 2003/2004, p.104–106; ‘Designers Block, 100% Design’, issue 65, feb/mar 2005, p.100–102, ‘100% Design’, issue 76, dec/jan 2006/2007, p.102

6a: ‘Casual Dress’, issue 46, feb/mar 2002, p.22–23; ‘Inside Out’, issue 62, aug/sep 2004, p.70–71

2004                 
•London contributing writer, NZ Home & Entertaining: Lubetkin: ‘Flat White’, feb/mar 2004, p.68–73

2003                 
•London correspondent, Australian Style (fashion and design magazine)

Alison Cooke: ‘Cooking up a Storm’, issue 49, mar 2001, p.41

El Ultimo Grito: ‘Design to Send you Cock-a-Hoop’, issue 57, nov 2001, p.48

Sarah Featherstone: ‘Eastender’, issue 56, oct 2001, p. 102–105; ‘Drop-Dead Daring’, issue 65, spring 2002, p.164–168

Robert Grace: ‘Amazing Grace’, issue 44, oct 2000, p. 58–65

John Pawson: ‘More or Less’, issue 67, autumn 2003, p.178–183

100 % Design: ‘100% Desirable’, issue 46, dec 2000, p. 78–79; “Less than Perfect”, issue 58, dec 2001/jan 2002, p.46–48

1998                
•editor of the Auckland Architectural Association Newsletter