Blog

Rapid Cities

September 24, 2023

It was maybe February 2019 and I was living in Dubai when this invitation to participate in this event arrived in my inbox. Rapid Cities – Responsive Architectures seeks to examine the dialectic, tensions, problems and possibilities of architecture and urbanism as technologically imbued, fast-paced commercial exercises. These questions are all provocative but still manage […]

PERFORMANCE

The Cost of Space

September 17, 2023

Graham McKay

New typologies for new circumstances, performance as an aesthetic

4 comments

I know it’s common practice in Western Europe, Japan and China, for residential unit listings to include not only the price but also the floor area of the dwelling. Some agents will even provide the cost per square metre so you can make your own judgment about the effects of factors such as location, view […]

HISTORY

The Wrong Side of History

September 10, 2023

Graham McKay

fake history, History and its uses, history in motion

no comments

I only learned about Victorian era architect Decimus Burton (1800–1881) a few months ago when two articles on him appeared in The Guardian online the same day. Decimus Burton was a skilled and prolific architect who, until recently, was mostly forgotten or, more to the point, never remembered. Both articles suggested this was because he […]

TYPOLOGIES

Headroom

September 3, 2023

Graham McKay

New typologies for new circumstances

no comments

Buildings with double height spaces have existed for as long as there have been haylofts, minstrels’ galleries and artist’s studios, but the history of making more efficient use of the height inside residential space is about a hundred years. Many of the first proposals were entries to the 1926 Comradely Competition for Communal Housing organized […]

TYPOLOGIES

Holes in Buildings

August 27, 2023

Graham McKay

new geometries for old purposes, New typologies for new circumstances

8 comments

Holes in buildings have been around for a while – at least since 1982 when Arquitectonica’s The Atlantis was completed and most definitely since 1984 when the building was featured in the opening credits of Miami Vice that ran for five seasons from 1984. I just read that one of the five founding members in 1977 […]

TYPOLOGIES

Freedom

August 20, 2023

Graham McKay

New typologies for new circumstances

no comments

This is another of those posts from misfits’ prehistory, this time from August 1999. The description on the site https://www.tomorrow.city/a/freedom-ship says: “Designed by the engineer Norman Nixon at the end of the ’90s, the “Freedom Ship is a 25-story high megaship that is 1,371.6 meters long, 228 meters wide and 106.68 meters high. The vessel is too […]

SCIENCE

AIA and AI

August 13, 2023

Graham McKay

creativity

no comments

I’m afraid it’s some more musing on AI. Recently, I was given a copy of Neil Leach’s book Architecture in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: An Introduction to AI for Architects [thanks VpD!]. It’s not the only book on the topic out there but, with a field that seems to be changing so rapidly, I […]

COMMENT

How Will The Metaverse Be Designed?

August 6, 2023

Graham McKay

architecture as problem solving, the indexing of experience

Sometime around late 2018 I felt I had to do something about how poorly this blog was indexed. Even I had trouble finding things and had, on occasion, resorted to a google search of my own blog. That feeling had been particularly strong this year, especially since the thumbnail EasyIndex software I’d been using was […]

THEORY

Pattern

July 23, 2023

Graham McKay

integrative design process

Hi Graham! What are your thoughts on the overall theory given by Christopher Alexander and Nikos Salingaros? How well does it sit with the Hannes Meyer’s Approach and the overall approach that you have been advocating for in architecture? I have some idea about Leon Krier and his work with Prince Charles in Britain and […]

FOOD

The Chinese Kitchen

July 16, 2023

Graham McKay

food and architectural taste, integrated performance

The Hong Kong Housing Authority has a museum that charts the history of Hong Kong’s high-rise residential typologies, and of how people’s living in them has changed. The time may come when we have to think of these towers as a resource that needs to be reused and repurposed as often as possible to get […]

HISTORY

Minimalism: In Poor Taste

July 9, 2023

Graham McKay

minimal living

Here’s another one from the archive. April 1999. I remember the career trajectory of John Pawson worrying me at the time. Then, everyone was talking about Minimalism. I later found out I lived about 200m from Pawson’s King’s Cross studio. Now, when I look back on this, I was clearly angry about something. I’ve bracketed […]

AESTHETICS

Nature Trail

July 2, 2023

Graham McKay

meta-aesthetics

The Dynamics of Delight: Architecture and AestheticsPeter F. Smith, Routeledge, London 2003 Last week I was looking for an article on that 1990s phenomenon, design coding in order to add something to a post with the working title of Pattern. I didn’t find it but, in folders within folders I did discover a stash of […]

FOOD

The Kitchen

June 25, 2023

Graham McKay

New typologies for new circumstances

In the oversized Victorian country houses of 19th century Britain, it was the custom for domestic tasks such as the preparation of food to be conducted out of sight of both family and guests but, in the Middle East, houses often a separate outside kitchen in which the maid roasts meant while, in the indoor […]

AESTHETICS

Inhabitation

June 18, 2023

Graham McKay

new paradigms for architecture

For some time now I’ve been fascinated by buildings and spaces not being used the way they were designed to be used. 1979, December (Kyoto, Japan) The first instance I can remember is from 1979. I’d only just arrived in Japan a couple of months earlier and though I was attending a language school in […]