Architecture and Freedom

Architects are facing a crisis of agency. For decades, they have seen their traditional role diminish in scope as more and more of their responsibilities have been taken over by other disciplines within the building construction industry. Once upon a time, we might have seen the architect as the conductor of the orchestra; now he or she is but one cog in a vast and increasingly complex machine. In an attempt to find a way out of this crisis, there is growing debate about how architects might reassert the importance of their role and influence. On one side of this argument are those who believe that architects must refocus their attention on the internal demands of the discipline. On the other are those who argue that architects must, instead, reacquaint themselves with what many still believe to be the discipline’s core mission of advancing social progress and promoting the public good, and at the same time the scope of their traditional disciplinary remit. At root, this question is fundamentally about freedom, about whether architects still possess it – if they have ever done – and whether it is possible to find the professional, disciplinary and individual autonomy to be able to define the spheres of their own practice. Presenting a variety of views and perspectives, this issue of AD takes us to the heart of what freedom means for architecture as it adapts and evolves in response to the changing contexts in which it is practised in the 21st century. Contributors include: Phillip Bernstein, Peggy Deamer, Adam Nathaniel Furman, Kate Goodwin, Charles Holland, Anna Minton, Patrik Schumacher, Alex Scott-Whitby, Ines Weizman, and Sarah Wigglesworth. Featured architects: Atelier Kite, ScottWhitbyStudio, C+S Architects, Anupama Kundoo, Noero Architects, Umbrellium, and Zaha Hadid Architects.

About the Guest-Editor 3 Introduction: Architecture and the Paradox of Freedom 6 (Un) Free Work: Architecture, Labour and Self-Determination 16 Limits to Freedom Liberating Form Programme and Ethics 24 Architecture's Internal Exile: Experiments in Digital Documentation of Adolf Loos's Vienna Houses 32 Unlocking Pentonville: Architectural Liberation in Self-Initiated Projects 40 The Freedom of Being Three: The Art of Architectural Growing Up 48 Freedom from The Known: Imagining the Future Without the Baggage of the Past 54 Lessons from Launching an Alternative Architectural Practice 62 The Freedom from Aesthetics 68 Freedom Via Soft Order: Architecture as a Foil for Social Self-organisation 76 The Paradox of Safety and Fear: Security in Public Space 84 Seeds of Legacy: Hybrid and Flexible Spaces 92 Wild Architecture: The Potential of Self-Build Settlements 102 Cultivating Spaces to Take Risks: An Interview with the Royal Academy of Arts' Kate Goodwin 110 Shared Memories of a Possible Future: An Interview with Umbrellium's Usman Haque 120 Counterpoint: The Omniscience and Dependency of Practice 128 Notes 131 Contributors 134