Miriam Attwood & John Kinsley: Building community.

About this episode

This episode discusses a collaborative architectural project that emphasizes community and custom housing.

Nine out of ten architectural practices in Europe are involved in designing private housing, according to the Architects Council of Europe, with the work generating 54% of the average practice’s turnover. But according to RIBA, in 2018 in the UK only 6% of housing was designed by architects. So housing is incredibly important to the economy of a profession which is very marginal to the production of housing in general. How did we get here? In this episode of the A is for Architecture Podcast I spoke to an architect and their client, or a client and their architect, about a project which perhaps illustrates another way of doing things. Working together, architect and Lecturer in Architecture Technology at Newcastle University, John Kinsley, and client (and Director at StorytellingPR) Miriam Attwood discuss their scheme for a collective custom build home in Leith, Scotland. It’s a good story well told of another image of housing, one which adopts a typology, form, material and technology - and a process of design – design-as-relationship - which positions the house in service to the community it is for, and preferences home making above money makers. As the Bruderhof like to say…

People in this episode

Host: Ambrose Gillick

Guests: Miriam Attwood, John Kinsley

Topics covered

• architecture
• housing
• community
• custom build
• design process

Keywords

• architecture
• housing design
• community building
• custom build homes
• design-as-relationship

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Architects Council of Europe, RIBA, John Kinsley Architects, StorytellingPR

Places: Leith, Scotland

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