New Producers Programme

By Architecture Fringe

New Producers Programme

APPLY HERE

The New Producers programme from the Architecture Fringe aims to encourage and develop new
voices in event organisation, exhibition production, curation, writing and cultural leadership in
Scotland - expanding the practice of architecture.

The Architecture Fringe supports agency and inspires change within the built environment. We are a
networked volunteer-led organisation of people and projects, rooted in Scotland, who care about the
wider common good. We explore architecture within its social, political and cultural contexts.

The New Producers programme is open to anyone with an interest in a progressive future for
architecture and the built environment. Working as a small team, with mentorship, close assistance
from the Architecture Fringe production team and a small self-directed budget of £2,000, the New Producers will be tasked with creating new cultural work for the Architecture Fringe 2021 Core Programme in June, responding to this year’s thematic provocation of (Un)Learning. The New Producers determine what this cultural work is, with a mixture of creative outputs encouraged.

Upon completion and review the New Producers will be invited to join and replenish the Architecture Fringe production team, to help lead on and contribute to the development and future work of the organisation.

The Architecture Fringe recognises the positive value of a diverse production team reflective of our shared built environment. We welcome and encourage applications from people of all genders, backgrounds and abilities. Applicants need not have gone to university or be professionally qualified. Applicants must have an interest in architecture and the built environment and be based in Scotland.

We’ll be hosting an online information meet-up at 7pm on Zoom on 24th March 2021 where you can ask some questions, bounce ideas around and hear more about the Architecture Fringe, the New Producers programme and the application process.

Our wonderful mentors for the New Producers programme have a broad range of relevant experience. They are:

• Akiko Kobayashi / architect and co-founder of the Architecture Fringe with experience in architecture, education, facilitation, volunteering and organising

• Crystal Bennes / artist, writer and researcher with experience in architecture, writing, curation and press

• Natasha Huq / architect and co-programmer of Talks At The Lane with experience in architecture, education, programming and events

• Andy Summers / architect and co-founder of the Architecture Fringe with experience in architecture, education, cultural production, programming, events, volunteering and organising

Applications for the New Producers programme must be received by 12 noon on Monday 29th March 2021. Please apply here.

The New Producers will be invited to undertake the following work:

• To conceptualise, programme and produce new cultural work for the Architecture Fringe 2021 Core Programme in June, responding to this year’s thematic provocation of (Un)Learning by means of a small self-directed budget of £2,000 provided by the Architecture Fringe

• To coordinate and project manage that work

• To manage monies effectively and within budget for that work

• To develop and produce associated graphics and branding for that work

• To undertake appropriate social media posting and audience engagement for that work

• To undertake appropriate event management and logistics work

• To present, host and be front of house for the new work

Attributes and interests which we feel are beneficial for the programme include:

• Being energetic and engaged

• Being aware of the contemporary landscape of architectural culture in Scotland with ideas on how that might be provoked, diversified and improved

• Being able to work with others in the production of work whilst being able to lead on and complete individual work at hand

• Being able to communicate in a clear and inclusive manner

How being selected for the programme will benefit you and what support you can expect:

• An opportunity to gain direct experience and knowledge of producing new cultural work,

engaging with relevant and wider audiences

• Direct mentoring from established cultural producers

• A platform for new work and new voices

• New connections and networking

• Opportunity to test and experiment within a supported structure

Application requirements

Please upload and tell us the following information here

• Name

• Email address

• Why you want to apply for the New Producers programme (250-300 words max)

• What you would like to learn and be mentored in from taking part in the New Producers programme (100-200 words max)

• Give us an example of an idea or project responding to the Architecture Fringe 2021 thematic provocation of (Un)Learning that you would potentially like to produce through the New Producers programme (100-200 words max)

• What you feel you could bring to the focus, work and organising of the Architecture Fringe if invited to join to production team (100-200 words max)

• Single page A4 CV

Application and Programme Timeline

• Thursday 11th March 2021 - New Producers programme launched

• Wednesday 24th March 2021 - New Producers online information meet-up @ 7pm REGISTER HERE!

• Monday 29th March 2021 - Open call for the New Producers programme closes at 12 noon

• Friday 2nd April 2021 - Invitations issued to shortlisted participants

• April & May 2021 - Production time

• Friday 4th - Sunday 20th June 2021- Architecture Fringe 2021

Frequently Asked Questions

• Who can apply to the New Producers programme? Anyone with an interest in architecture and the built environment who is based in Scotland.

• Do applicants have to be architecture students or architects? No, applicants do not have to have gone to university or be professionally qualified, and can have training in any discipline

• Are the New Producers paid for their work? The £2,000 programme budget is to be self-directed by the New Producers - how this is spent is up to the small team with advanced sanction from the Architecture Fringe. The Architecture Fringe is a volunteer-led organisation, and encourages the New Producers to consider using some of their budget to pay themselves a small fee.

• What can the new cultural work for the Architecture Fringe 2021 Core Programme be? The New Producers determine what this cultural work is, with a mixture of creative outputs encouraged, and could include an exhibition, series of online or in-situ events, podcasts, written work, an installation...anything as long the work adheres to contemporary COVID-19 government guidelines.

That’s it! Apply! :-)

We are very excited to launch this programme and look forward to receiving your applications. Thank you! and good luck!

ArchiFringe x

(Un)Learning for the Architecture Fringe 2021

By Architecture Fringe

Architecture Fringe 2021: (Un)Learning

Welcome to the beginning of the journey towards the Architecture Fringe 2021! Our theme for the festival is (Un)Learning.

‘It is imperative that we maintain hope even when the harshness of reality may suggest the opposite.’  Paulo Freire

The majority of systems and structures that we have built to bring order to our lives are destroying us and life on Earth. 

Architecture is uncritically complicit in its reliance on these systems and structures for its very creation, with little resistance or defiance in its making or deployment. We have arrived at the intersection of a climate emergency, global pandemic and racialised capitalist economy and the ground on which we stand is shifting at speed. We are in transition, from one world to another. Things are changing, and in order to make that change positive and transformative we need to engage in a process of unlearning and learning anew. To (un)learn. There is hope.

‘Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.’ Arundhati Roy

In a complex and interconnected world, with systems large and small, fast and slow, how can architecture as a process, a way of thinking, help us (un)learn in order to firstly navigate this complexity, then to reimagine and create a much better way of doing things? How can we radically rethink, through (un)learning, architecture’s environmental impact on the Earth? How can we refocus architectural education away from a whitewashed Western lens? How can we redefine our relationship to the land, from ownership to stewardship? How can our dwellings, neighbourhoods and cities achieve greater equality for those who live there? We have much to unpack, reflect upon and make anew with architecture realigned as a progressive force for a wider common good.

For the Architecture Fringe 2021 we invite you to (un)learn with us, to interrogate your own behaviours, beliefs and biases in order to acknowledge how the world really is to then reimagine how it could be. 

The Architecture Fringe 2021 will run 04-20 June 2021. The Open Call for will be announced shortly. Join our mailing list to be kept up to date.

A Change Of Rhythm For The Architecture Fringe

By Architecture Fringe

The Architecture Fringe is changing rhythm. After four successful annual editions we are transitioning to a new two-year model, with the next full Architecture Fringe due in June 2021.

This adjustment is to enable us to work towards making the Architecture Fringe financially sustainable as an organisation, and to nourish the organisation as a creative force for progressive change in the built environment. In the face of climate breakdown, too, we want to work in a more sustainable way which is structural, holistic and authentic. 

We see our future as continuing to provide a platform for discourse in relation to our social, political and cultural contexts. We also see that future offering the opportunity to foster stronger, wider relationships: to produce longer-term work with deeper outcomes for lasting, profound change: to research, present and provoke; to work nationally in all parts of Scotland; and to engage internationally in support of equality, diversity, wellbeing and the wider common good. 

But we also need to look after ourselves. While the festival has expanded and grown the capacity of the production team has not. Everything from core programme project curation and event production, open programme management, graphic design, social media, bookkeeping, fundraising and all the bits in between is undertaken by a small group of volunteers who also hold down full time jobs and family responsibilities. This year we realised that our current structure isn’t the one we need to enable the Architecture Fringe to go forward. Following this year’s festival the production team got together to reflect on five years hard work. We explored what we did well, what we could do better and shared ideas, hopes and stories to help set a new direction for a sustainable Architecture Fringe. 

A new two-year model

The new two-yearly model will give us the time to seek funding and structural support, to enable us to employ full-time team members. The provision of the Architecture Fringe core programme and open programme platform takes serious time, and we have so much more that we'd like to try and do with year-round activity which inspires agency, encourages change and facilitates new ideas, new voices and new work. Most things will stay the same about the way we organise the Architecture Fringe. The open call for the Architecture Fringe 2021 will launch in the spring of 2020, giving everyone a full twelve months to develop their ideas, plan their projects, organise their venues and get the support that they need. We’ll continue to set a thematic provocation and host open meet-ups across the country for people to access information, meet others and get some help. Taking part in the Architecture Fringe will remain free.

At the heart of the Architecture Fringe is the oscillation between the core and open programmes. Knowing that there is a wider community of active do-ers, knowing that someone will answer the open call (in increasing numbers!) and knowing that we are not alone in the change that we seek keeps us going. We’d like to thank everyone who has joined us on the Architecture Fringe so far, for all the wonderful work that you have produced and for helping foster a supportive, active culture of architecture here in Scotland. We are excited for the future!

If you would like to support our work please drop us a line at hello@architecturefringe.com. Likewise if you have any queries on our new model please just get in touch.

With best wishes, 

ArchiFringe x

VOLUNTEER WITH US!

By Architecture Fringe

DEADLINE EXTENDED TO 31.05.2019!

Hello!

With the Architecture Fringe 2019 Programme released we are now looking for volunteers to help us successfully deliver this year’s festival.

We are a volunteer-run, non-profit organisation and are seeking like-minded people to enter into the spirit of contributing a small amount of their personal time in helping us make the Architecture Fringe the best it can be.

We like to create a welcoming and inclusive environment in all our events and exhibitions and so it will be a great way for you to meet people in architecture and the associated professions in addition to the wider creative industries.

As we’re asking you to volunteer your time, we’ll do our best to maintain consistent and flexible shifts allowing you plenty of time to enjoy the rest of what the Architecture Fringe has to offer.

With a mix of locations and venues we’ll also do our best to ensure that you won’t have to travel too far to get to us, either.

Our Core Programme of events and exhibitions will need assistance in installing, invigilating and stewarding and there’ll always be a member of the Architecture Fringe production team on hand in a supporting capacity.

The schedule of events, dates, volunteer times and locations include the following:

Installation of exhibitions at The Lighthouse, Glasgow and Custom Lane, Edinburgh
Monday 3rd – Friday 7th June inclusive, 10am-5pm to help get our festival hubs ready

Architecture Fringe Opening Party
Friday 7th June, 4pm – late, The Lighthouse and The Old Hairdresser’s, Glasgow

Architecture Fringe 2019 Glasgow Hub – The Lighthouse
Friday 7th – Sunday 30th June inclusive, daily 10:15am-5pm (3-4 hour shifts), The Lighthouse, Glasgow for Re-Types, In Progress, Queer Space, /Other, Home, At Last, Publishing House and other exhibitions.

Architecture Fringe 2019 Edinburgh Hub - Custom Lane and Custom House
Friday 7th – Sunday 23rd June inclusive, daily 10am-6pm (3-4 hour shifts), Custom Lane & Custom House, Edinburgh for House Rules and other exhibitions.

Home, At Last Discussion
Saturday 8th June, 2pm – 4pm, The Lighthouse, Glasgow

Queer Space Panel Discussion
Tuesday 11th June 6:30pm – 8pm, The Lighthouse, Glasgow

Pecha Kucha Edinburgh v.42 ‘In Real Life’
Thursday 13th June 8pm - 10.30pm, Inspace, Edinburgh

Late Thursday Glasgow Social
Thursday 13th June, 6pm-11pm, Civic House, Glasgow

House Rules Panel Discussion
Saturday 15th June 2019, 10:30am - 2pm, Custom Lane, Edinburgh

Typologies Talk
Wednesday 19th June, 6pm – 9:30pm, The Lighthouse, Glasgow

Late Thursday Edinburgh Social
Thursday 20th June, 6pm-11pm, Custom Lane, Edinburgh

Big Lecture with Peter Barber
Friday 21st June, 6pm-11pm, The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh

We’d love to have you be a part of what we are creating.

If you’d like to join us please drop co-producer Ruta a line at ruta@architecturefringe.com noting ‘Volunteer Help’ in the subject heading by 12 noon on FRIDAY 31st MAY 2019

If you’ve volunteered with us previously your help again would be appreciated! If you’ve already contacted us about volunteering for this year’s festival we have you on our list, but please feel free to drop Ruta a message, too.

Thank you!!

ArchiFringe x

Help Make It Happen!

By Architecture Fringe

One of the most exciting, innovative and diverse festivals on the Scottish arts calendar
The List Magazine

The Architecture Fringe must be the most dynamic entity in British architecture right now
Phineas Harper, Deputy Director of the Architecture Foundation, London

The combination of meaningful critique and boundless energy is infectious and welcome
Anonymous audience feedback, Glasgow

Why support us?

Hello! Would you like to be a part of Scotland’s largest festival of architecture - the Architecture Fringe - and help make it the best it can be?

Yes. Your support make’s a huge difference to what we can do and by supporting the Architecture Fringe you’ll be helping to grow and develop one of the most exciting grassroots creative platforms in Europe, encompassing the built environment, public space, art and politics.

With your help we can bring the fourth edition of the ArchiFringe into being and connect with an active, engaged and informed audience. With over 250 participants and 8,000 visitors the Architecture Fringe audience includes architecture and built environment professionals, educators, designers and interested citizens at large. The festival has an active and responsive profile on social media, in the press, on and offline.

Who are we?

Initiated by a group of architects, designers, photographers, engineers, visual artists, curators and musicians the Architecture Fringe is an independent contributor-led series of projects and events across the arts which explores architecture and its impact.

It’s a platform that encourages and supports both ideas and agency. We believe in thinking, testing, prototyping and taking risks. We believe that it is our actions in response to our discourse that ultimately sets the tone for the culture that we create.

What have we done so far?

The first-ever Architecture Fringe took place in 2016 inspired the Scottish Government’s then Year of Innovation, Architecture & Design and has developed into an annual event. The 2018 edition of the festival was the largest and most geographically widespread festival to date with 65 projects across Scotland from Inverness and Aberdeen through to Argyll, Glasgow, Cumbernauld, Fife, Edinburgh and the Scottish Borders. The Architecture Fringe also participated in the CANactions International Architecture Festival in Kiev, Ukraine where we shared what we do and presented the wider scene of contemporary architectural culture in Scotland to a new international audience.

We are a non-profit registered Community Interest Company run by a team of dedicated volunteers. Our work is nationally and internationally recognised and revolves around several key principles:

- Supporting new work and emerging practice in architecture in Scotland

- Developing a friendly but critical community of voices to connect, support and challenge each other

- Offering a platform to encourage a wider conversation about architecture in Scotland within our
contemporary cultural and socio-political contexts

- Engaging internationally with other people and organisations

What are we doing now?

This year's Architecture Fringe provocation is In Real Life, [IRL] and invites participants to speculate on the extraordinary here and now - to explore and expose the conditions and contradictions in architectural culture, experiment with the every-day, challenge the ‘realities’ of our built environment and re-energise architecture’s role in creating better places and spaces, IRL.

The Architecture Fringe 2019 will run 07-23 June across Scotland and will include a funded core programme exploring In Real Life and an open-platform programme of independent work. To help deliver the Architecture Fringe we have applied for public funding but we also rely on the warm support of individuals, organisations and companies. Any assistance would significantly help us to achieve our ambitions in the continuation of the festival as a positive force for good.

How you can help!

Our sponsorship brochure provides further detail on our activity and notes how support for the Architecture Fringe will be recognised. If you have any queries or would like to discuss anything in relation to this opportunity, please contact us at: sponsorship@architecturefringe.com

Thank you!!

ArchiFringe x

Open Call Opens!

Today we launch our open call for Architecture Fringe 2019 - Submissions are now open, and you can read about this years theme and provocation here, IRL. We look forward to hearing your ideas!

Programme Launch! & Core Programme Update

By Architecture Fringe

The programme for the Architecture Fringe 2018 will launch at 10am on Tuesday 1st May! 

This year’s #ArchiFringe will be the largest to date with over 70 projects across Scotland with architecture, art, dance, music, live performance, film, photography, tours, talks, debates and a summer school. Excited? Yaaaaaas! :-)

This year the programme also reflects the growing geographic reach of the fringe, with activity from Abriachan, Forres and Aberdeen to Lochgoilhead, Dunoon, Glasgow, Croy, Cumbernauld, Stirling, Kelty, Edinburgh and Mellerstain. 

Some sneaky open programme teasers include a Salon de Refuses in Portobello where a celebration of rejection will take place for works that never were; a day of cultural and creative activism in land reform followed by a mid-summer evening of music, song and bonfire up above Loch Ness; a one-day cinematic marathon from dawn til dusk presenting all things architecture, design and Barbicania..; a sonic dialogue exploring our responsiveness to modern heritage in-situ at Craigsbank Church; and a raucous Turncoats debate on the slow-death financialisation of our art and architecture schools - cheery! Just a snippet of what’s on in June.

Core Programme Update

The strength of the Architecture Fringe is the symbiotic energy, reflective inspiration and mutual support that the open and core programmes provide for each other on an annual basis. Since October at the monthly open meet-ups the Architecture Fringe production team has pitched, presented and taken feedback on this year’s core programme proposals. This well thought-through and carefully put-together programme of research, commissioned work, exhibitions and events under the COMMON/SENSES provocation was submitted for public funding in December. In March of this year we were informed that our submission to that month’s Creative Scotland assessment panel was unsuccessful. We understand that the panel were to assess almost £600,000 worth of work against an available budget of £290,000. No easy task. Any application seeking funding within the framework of the Open Project Fund system inherently carries the risk of being declined. On submission our application to Creative Scotland was internally assessed and scored 11 out of a maximum of 12 points. There was no detrimental queries or feedback. We would like to take this opportunity to thank our liaison officers at Creative Scotland who, for over three years now, have been incredibly responsive, supportive and encouraging towards the Architecture Fringe. 

With this in mind our core programme for the Architecture Fringe 2018 will be a little more nimble and fully utilise the funds and resources that we have. We will be exploring and establishing positions on a variety of critical topics within the COMMON/SENSES provocation through tours, events and exhibitions. These will subsequently be used to further inform our future work. There’ll also be our wonderful, amazing, always a rave-in-the-making Opening Party in Glasgow and our wonderful, provocative and high-profile Closing Lecture in Edinburgh. We would like to acknowledge and thank the support that will make this possible from the Scottish Government, University of Edinburgh, Helen Lucas Architects, GRAS, Custom Lane, Collective Architecture, Urban Pioneers, Calum Duncan Architects, Konishi Gaffney Architects and iGuzzini.

Thank you to everyone who continues to support us and to all the open programme contributors for using the platform as intended. Good work!

Full details for all will be revealed on Tuesday. 

Support Us

Your support makes a huge difference to what we can do. By supporting the Architecture Fringe you'll be helping grow and develop one of the most exciting grassroots creative platforms in Europe. Our volunteer production team are highly skilled and experienced. Any financial assistance, at any scale, significantly helps us to achieve our ambitions for the continuation of the festival.

Our sponsorship document takes you through how you can help :-)

If you have any queries please drop us a line at sponsorship@architecturefringe.com

Thank you!

ArchiFringe x

Kiev Calling!

By Architecture Fringe

We're delighted to announce that the Architecture Fringe will be participating in this year's CANactions International Architecture Festival in Kiev, Ukraine, 20-21 April 2018.

A key objective for the Architecture Fringe is to engage internationally, to share what we do and to help present the wider scene of contemporary architectural culture here in Scotland.

For CANactions we'll be out and about in the city creating a temporary intervention within the streetscape. This will be followed by a workshop where we'll be presenting what, how and importantly why we do what we do. We'll also introduce the work of Crumble Magazine and Voices of Experience to this new international audience. Agile City's Test Unit will be presented as a case study in prototyping public spaces. We'll finish the day off looking at Land Reform in Scotland, exploring community agency from both a historical perspective and through contemporary legislation and activism.  

You can view the Facebook event page here.

If you're in Kiev we look forward to meeting you! Follow our journey on Instagram and Twitter :-)

ArchiFringe x

Help Make It Happen

By Architecture Fringe

Hello! Your support make a huge difference to what we can do. Help us make the Architecture Fringe the best it can be. By supporting the Architecture Fringe, you’ll be helping to grow and develop one of the most exciting grassroots creative platforms in Europe.

The Architecture Fringe was founded in 2015 by a group of architects, designers, photographers, engineers, visual artists and curators to encourage public debate about architecture and design in Scotland within its broader cultural and socio-political context.

The inaugural Architecture Fringe took place in 2016 within the Year of Innovation, Architecture & Design. The 2017 edition of the festival hosted a funded core programme and work from 260 contributors through over 50 projects in 37 venues across Scotland.

We are a non-profit registered Community Interest Company run by a team of dedicated volunteers. Our work is highly praised and we work hard undertaking the following:

- Supporting new work and emerging practice in architecture in Scotland

- Developing a friendly but critical community of voices to connect, support and challenge each other

- Offering a platform to encourage a wider conversation about architecture in Scotland in a contemporary cultural and socio-political context

- Engaging internationally with other people and organisations

This year's Architecture Fringe is loosely structured around a thematic provocation entitled COMMNON/SENSES and will investigate our shared, intersectional experience within the urban environment in tandem with a more sensorial exploration of the spaces that we inhabit both off and online.

Planning for this year’s ArchiFringe is well-underway with a developing series of core programme projects, exhibitions and events together with a number of engaging, and critical, projects on the open platform.

To help part-deliver the Architecture Fringe 2018 we have applied for some public funding, but we rely on additional, warm, support from individuals, organisations and companies.

All financial support for the Architecture Fringe is a huge help. Our volunteer steering group and production team are highly skilled and experienced. Any assistance, at any scale, would significantly help us to achieve our ambitions in the continuation of the festival as a positive force for good.

Our sponsorship document provides further detail on our activity and notes how support for the Architecture Fringe will be recognised.

We would be grateful, and delighted! if you could support us in any to help make the Architecture Fringe 2018 festival the best it can be. 

If you have any queries, or would like to discuss anything in relation to this opportunity, please contact us at: sponsorship@architecturefringe.com

Thank you!

ArchiFringe x

Creative Edinburgh Awards 2017 Nomination!!

By Architecture Fringe

We're delighted that the Architecture Fringe has been nominated as part of the Creative Edinburgh Awards 2017! We've been shortlisted for the Collaboration Award which recognises an outstanding creative collaboration between two or more organisations or individuals. Our nomination is for the entire Architecture Fringe 2017 programme! - acknowledging the symbiotic relationship between the amazing and diverse open and core programmes and our volunteer production team. 

A massive, massive congratulations to everyone who took part in the Architecture Fringe 2017. With 260 contributors throughout the open and core programmes producing over 50 events and projects in 37 venues, the ArchiFringe this year was amazing.

This nomination is for all of us together - well done to everyone!!

Congratulations, too, to everyone else who has been nominated across the categories - we're in some wonderful company!

The winners will be announced at the Creative Edinburgh Awards on 24 November 2017 at Codebase. Good luck everyone and thanks Creative Edinburgh for shortlisting us!

Voices Of Experience

By Jude Barber, Suzanne Ewing and Nicola McLachlan

Voices of Experience: seeing, hearing and talking about architecture in new ways

Architecture is the most public of arts, entangled with conceptual and literal constructions of society and environment.  It determines how we shape neighbourhoods and expresses the hopes and dreams of the communities we dwell in and move through.  Yet, how do we see, hear and talk about architecture in public life?  Beyond encounters in everyday life, architectural projects and the people who make them are usually exposed through professional and academic channels.  They reach public audiences through grand design media stories when they often become controversial.

Voices of Experience originated in a conversation between a practising architect, Jude Barber, and an architect educator, Suzanne Ewing and was inspired by the opportunities posed by the 2016 Architecture Fringe.  Both were frustrated with the perennial blind spot in formal professional discourse towards the range and depth of work of women architects, particularly in the run up to the RIAS’ 2016 Festival of Architecture.  Whilst there is increasing attention and research by organisations such as Parlour, AJ Women In Architecture campaign, and #EthelDay there is still much to be done.

Voices of Experience is a collaborative project which has constructed a series of conversations between a highly experienced architect or maker of the built environment, and an architect or other professional at the outset of their career.  It is the start of an on-going audio archive intended to be housed in the Glasgow Women’s Library.

Each ‘conversation’ has a project or thematic concern in common and the participants discuss their work on location. The contextual focus is late twentieth century Scotland, at a time when we need to rethink the social and public purpose of architecture. Contributors to the project have included architect Margaret Richards, conservation architect Fiona Sinclair, architect/historian Dorothy Bell, teacher/architect Anne Duff, planner Kirsteen Borland, conservation architect Jocelyn Cunliffe and architect, Denise Bennetts. They have been joined by Mairi Laverty, Nicola McLachlan, Cathy Houston and Emma Fairhurst of Collective Architecture, planner Heather Claridge of Glasgow City Council, designer-activist Grace Mark and conservation architect Melanie Hay.

Andrew Saint’s book, The Image of the Architect (1983), traces cases of the constructed idea of the architect as the authority, expert and sometimes genius supplanting master craftsmen at the helm of society’s architectural projects.   During the 2016 Festival of Architecture the RIAS presented the image of the architect at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery with the ‘Out Of Their Heads’ exhibition.  The exhibition displayed portraits of those who already had their image steadfastly fixed in society.  The architects who had found places in public galleries and on wealthy private walls. A poster created during Glasgow 1999 City of Culture shows a male tribe of singular headshots entitled ‘Architects of Glasgow’.

Making good architecture is a complex endeavour that is potently significant within our collective public life.  We therefore need to pay more attention to the real sophistication of the production of our built environment - the teams, interrelationships and roles of expert practice positioned deeply within.  Might we also extend beyond the narrow bounds of professional architectural culture? The authority of formally designated critics, designers and historians of architecture, validated by their media, professional or educational institutional status, tend to hold a monopoly on who can speak for and about architecture.

What we love about the new Architecture Fringe platform is the inclusiveness of multiple viewpoints, emerging practices, experimental projects, reflective and collective stances. As an evolving open source web platform it offers a place to see, meet and make architectural culture in new ways.  In a counterbalance to Saint’s Image of the Architect, Francesca Hughes’ edited book, The Architect: Reconstructing her Practice (1996) offers ways of re-thinking conventional tropes of the profession.

Insights from our seven paired conversations and both Voices of Experience public events have been broad-ranging and generous.  They have included ways in which architects discover their preoccupations, strengths, range and niche through different working relationships and formats; resonating experiences of women entering into architectural education decades apart; and the making and remaking of homes and work at different stages of life and outlook.

-

Audiences at the Voices of Experience events have responded positively to the social history aspects of the conversations.  They have also openly shared their own insights stating their favourite aspects of the project to be 'The modesty of these great architects’, ‘The variety of issues raised that show bold insights and achievements’ and ‘An insight into all aspects of architecture’.

Voices of Experience has demonstrated an appetite to understand what architects actually do rather than what some selectively choose to show.

Jude Barber is an architect and Director of Collective Architecture.
Suzanne Ewing is an architect and head of ESALA (Edinburgh School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture) at Edinburgh University.
Nicola McLachlan is an architect at Collective Architecture.

The List Hot 100 2017!!

By Architecture Fringe

We're delighted that the Architecture Fringe has been included within The List Magazine's Hot 100 for 2017! The countdown, as put together by the magazine, is of figures and organisations who've contributed most to Scotland's cultural landscape this year and we debut at number 65! Thank you so much to The List for including us. 

A massive, massive congratulations to everyone who took part in the Architecture Fringe 2017. With 260 contributors throughout the open and core programmes producing over 50 events and projects in 37 venues, the ArchiFringe this year was amazing. A huge thanks, too, to our wonderful hardworking volunteer production team. Well done to everyone!!

A big, big thank you! to our wonderful funders and supporters - we couldn't do it without you.

We hope you'll join us again. Onwards to the Architecture Fringe 2018!

Bursting The Bubble

By Felicity Parsons

I first became aware of the Architecture Fringe when the 2016 programme was being planned. I saw tweets about it and I can remember thinking what an interesting idea it was (more interesting than the official Festival of Architecture being run by the RIAS). I even considered going to one of the start-up meetings. But I didn’t. And in the end, I didn’t go to any of the events.

That’s a rather embarrassing admission. In my defence, I can only say that in July 2016 I was preparing to move house while struggling with chemo brain. That didn’t leave me with much headspace for anything else.

Twelve months later, tweets about the Architecture Fringe 2017 events began to catch my eye: Piss Poor Planning?, Publishing House, Voices of Experience, Greener Grass? With more space in both my diary and my head this year, I decided to make up for lost time by attending as many events as I could.

I was attracted to the Architecture Fringe by the breadth of its programme and its sometimes provocative themes. However, I was unprepared for the sheer creative, intellectual and political energy buzzing around the events. I came away from each debate, talk and exhibition with my mind full of ideas and creative energy.

At this point, I should say that I’m not an architect, although I’ve spent most of my life working in architecture. It’s a field I love. I enjoy working with architects because, in my experience, they genuinely want to use their skills, expertise and imagination for the benefit of society. However, that’s not always easy in our current political and economic climate.

Therefore, at the Architecture Fringe it was exciting to see how architects who are disenchanted with the mainstream practice of architecture are taking action (whether that’s by thinking, writing, exploring or doing) to change things. One of the highlights of the programme for me was the short film Architecture Working by the collective Architectural Workers at the Publishing House event. I also loved Dress for the Weather’s proposal for a self-running community centre, which was part of the New Typologies exhibition and talk.

While it was great to witness so much constructively critical thinking, some of the Architecture Fringe discussions seemed rooted in a belief in a sort of architectural exceptionalism: the idea that architects alone can bring about change in the practice of architecture and in our built environment.

I don’t think this is right. While some individual architects and practices may be able to work in radical new ways, it would be very difficult for the whole profession to do this without outside support and cooperation. Architects need the backing not just of clients, planners, cost consultants and contractors but also of politicians and the general public if they are to bring about meaningful change.

With the Piss Poor Planning? Turncoats debate and the Essential Relationship networking event for architects and clients, the Architecture Fringe did provide a platform for some of the non-architects who have a powerful influence on the built environment. In future years, it would be interesting to have more contributions from outside the profession. Bring on the quantity surveyors and the fund managers who invest in student residences!

Most importantly, architects need the support of the general public. Imagine what could be achieved if every voter started to campaign for more good quality social housing, more accessible public buildings and better public spaces. Given the opportunity at the Architecture Fringe, they could start by asking demanding questions of the cost consultants and fund managers.

I’m not sure what proportion of the Architecture Fringe audience was drawn from the general public, but events such as the New Typologies exhibition and talks could perhaps have been made more attractive to a general audience by having less jargony and oblique titles. How about New Ways of Thinking About Public Buildings? (Declaration of interest: I do not like the word ‘typology’.)

This reflection might give the impression that the Architecture Fringe is a very serious programme. At one level it is. But the events I attended were also very entertaining. The speakers were funny and irreverent; the discussions were lively and informal; and the audiences were sociable.

Produced by a team of volunteers, the Architecture Fringe is independent of Scotland’s mainstream architectural institutions. That is a strength, and I hope it will remain independent. Putting on a programme like this is a huge commitment, and I’d like to thank the organisers for all their work. I’m already looking forward to the 2018 programme.

Felicity Parsons is a freelance writer and writing skills trainer specialising in architecture. After living and working for many years in London, she moved to Glasgow in 2013.

She attended Architecture Fringe 2017 events including the Civic House exhibitions, Piss Poor Planning?, New Typologies, Publishing House, Voices of Experience and Pop Up Cinema in Glasgow, and Greener Grass? in Edinburgh.

A Tale of 3 (or 4) Exhibitions

By Neil McGuire

This article was written on the back of a trip a few of us involved with the Architecture Fringe took to the Venice Architecture Biennale in late August 2016. The biennale theme was ‘Reporting from the Front’  and was directed by Alejandro Aravena. This piece wasn’t originally intended as a reflection on the Architecture Fringe, and it isn’t really, but thought it might be worth posting here.

What is noticeable: 
How white I am; (I mean *really* white);
that Venice is to all intents and purposes, a theme park - but a weird and interesting one;
that it is stuck in a 'catch-22', between water and a not very hard place;
that it’s both reliant on and destroyed by tourism;
that big, big boats quietly drifting past (and dwarfing) small houses is a fascinating sight;
that at night it empties;
that the Architecture Biennale seems like it landed from out of space;
that the biennale provides a window, through a weird prism, on the preoccupations of some of the worlds leading architects and architectural projects of note;
that it is a strange projection of nationality (and of ego);
that the Biennale is what it is, (neither better or worse than the previous one I'd seen), so epic in scale that for any individual curator (or their 'theme') to have a discernible impact on the overall experience seems an ask too far. (David Chipperfield described it, in 2012, as like trying to curate the whole of Oxford street, and I imagine this to be a good analogy).

In the face of this, any attempt to provide an overarching review or a meta-narrative that in any way summarises the broad range of exhibits, qualities or approaches that make up this festival of architecture would be an impossible task. What follows instead is an attempt to talk about some specifics.

While the official ‘core’ festival is vast, the broader selection of parallel shows is enormous. Part of that extra-biennale programme is a retrospective exhibition of the work of Zaha Hadid and her practice, curated, produced and presented by the practice itself. While you might expect the work of one of the pre-eminnent architects of her generation (and one of the key names to break out of architecture circles and into the popular cultural imagination) to feature somewhere in the official programme, it doesn't. Regardless of what you think of her work, and her studios output, their ability to divide opinion is beyond discussion.

The exhibition, given Hadid’s death earlier this year, and the way it was curated, was always in danger of becoming an extended eulogy – and this is the overriding impression that one takes away from it. Rich in visual material, from early paintings (for me the most interesting part of the show which illuminate a part of her practise that I was previously ignorant of) to models, to parametric prototypes and test constructions, the show feels like it is delivered with the volume turned up to eleven throughout - especially when also taking in the resplendent backdrop against which it is exhibited; the Palazzo Franchetti. Both models and images of projects are presented butted up against each other, leaving little room to step back and reflect, to really appreciate those astonishing buildings she has created, or to really make an assessment of where one ends and the next begins. But this visual energy is also perhaps one of the most intriguing things I took away from this show; the idea that architects able to operate at this level are essentially living out a complex set of ‘double-edged sword’ scenarios. They need to project the image of the single minded iconoclast but support and pay for an office of people to deliver the projects. They need to remain committed to their vision, but this necessary confidence brings with it (it seems) a fixedness of opinion and increasing inability to respond to context. 

In a side room, an accompanying documentary by BBC sycophant-in-chief Alan Yentob which was playing on loop, did nothing to help lift the tone of worshipping at the altar. However it did (through its recounting of Hadids early career) serve as a reminder of how hostile the profession can be to outsiders - something important to be reminded of.

It would be ridiculous to suggest that Hadid hasn’t had a massive impact on architecture at the end of the 20th and start of the 21st century, but it would be equally ridiculous to discuss this without reference to the broader context of the practice as it developed and the way more recent work was sought and executed. The exhibition provided an insight in to this world, but due to its curation and curators, was weighted heavily towards the former rather than the latter.

From an established superstar architect, to the young architect-planners-come-curators of the British Pavillion. The exhibition ‘Home Economics’, curated by Shumi Bose, Jack Self and Finn Williams sought to ask questions of domestic life - how we live today and how we might live in the future. Hyper-aestheticised, the sparse normcore design of the exhibit was a confident gesture but one that ultimately offered the viewer little beyond a cold and guarded millenial take on precarious work and its impact on the way we live. Organised around time periods - hours, days, weeks, months - the publication did go some way to fleshing out the premise and position of this installation, and was really an essential supplement. All the curators are good writers and connectors of content and ideas, but this seemed to be somewhat lacking here in a way that it isn’t in their other projects. The installation isn’t without its moments of lightness that give pause for reflection - the oversize Georgian-era door, or lyrical doormats - but these moments don’t seem to build to more than a succession of floating one-liners. Self and Bose are co-founders and editors of the Real Review, and some of the bite you might find in that publication would have gone a long way to engage the viewer and offer some routes in to the ideas and associated material.

While the British pavilion could be said to have been underloaded with content, the same couldn’t be said of the Baltic pavilion. Located in a modernist gym hall near the Arsenale, this had both a lot in common with some of the other ‘grand-overview’ exhibitions that make up a significant part of the biennale, but in another way was operating to an entirely different logic.

It was, on one level, a hotch potch of all types of content; photographs, artworks, scientific equipment, maps, videos. Focussing on the regions natural and man-made infrastructure (both its past and its future in a post-soviet context), this collaborative effort between the states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania was enthusiastic and energetic in both the type of material it was displaying and the imaginative way in which it displayed it. It gave you enough information to want to find out more, in a space where you could easily linger. It was accompanied by a beautiful publication, and used variety and texture to draw the viewer in, rather than stretching towards an over-simplified narrative. Between all of these elements it managed to create an experience that was both pragmatic, imaginative and speculative.

The curation seemed influenced by recent turns in art towards the re-imagining and re-presenting of the 'archive', and the stripped back but often ingenious exhibition design (riffing off the context it found itself in) further enhanced the experience. Perhaps because thoughts of Brexit were front of mind at the time we visited, the idea of small independent states working in cooperation (with several projects looking further to links with Finland etc), served to re-affirm that (despite the political debates that probably arose from this attempt at a three-country pavilion) it was still possible to achieve something ambitious in cooperation - the whole, it seems, being greater than the sum of its parts.

To conclude, away from the national pavilions, another exhibit that caught my attention was by Forensic Architecture - a research unit based out of Goldsmiths University, London. This fully embodied ‘reporting from the front’ - the practice is involved with aggregating and analysing the multiple data streams and rich media sources that now emminate from warzones and international incidents, and reassembling these fragments in to narratives that tell us a lot about people and power. They have completed a number of significant projects, including a study of the ‘left to die’ boat, a migrant vessel left to drift in open seas with no country willing to take responsibility for its stricken passengers. The key to this exhibition is its accessible content, which simply makes the assertion, in an incredibly visceral but non-hysterical way, that a Hellfire ‘bunker busting’ missile is a contemporary architectural tool. What we take from this and how we respond would be the next good question.

Neil McGuire is a designer based in Glasgow

Finding the Fringe

By Chris Dobson

I came to the ArchiFringe as an interested observer, having been aware of the inaugural 2016 planning meetings but unable to attend and with an initial degree of scepticism that it may simply be architectural events, for other architects. One of life’s less appetising prospects.

What I discovered, however, was that it was something far beyond that. Well constituted, well directed and with an agenda that sought the widest public engagement.

It arrives at an interesting time in Scottish Architecture. Set in the context of Lee Ivett’s recent piece in the Architectural Review, ArchiFringe 2016, to me, represented an encapsulation of the pertinent discussion points raised in the column. Building from grassroots level, the events contained within this year’s programme effectively demonstrated the presence of a passion and strongly rooted social agenda amongst a new generation of architects who are seeking, against much resistance, to find a voice and a place in a world mired with obstructive pre-qualification questionnaires and paralysing risk aversion. Multi-disciplinary work was also frequently in evidence, the aloof isolation of the traditional architectural mindset being pleasingly dismantled.

The events that I attended were shorn of pretension, neatly straddling the interests of those directly involved within the profession and those who engaged to learn more.

The constituent parts of the show held at Gayfield Creative Spaces were a good reflection of this. From the tangible, in the form of the tactile output of ‘Modern Ornament’ and the collected models of ‘The Macquette’ - a pertinent reminder that, in our increasingly digital world, a card hewn manifestation of the design process is invaluable, for both Architect and Client – to the more ethereal, expressed via the delicate linework of Tamsin Cunnigham’s ‘Peripheries & Outlines’.

Sitting somewhere between the two, Robb Mcrae’s photographic study of well-loved and cherished homes, existing on the periphery of Edinburgh was an entirely sneer-free study of suburbia. So often derided in design circles, yet so often representative of the aspirations of those seeking a family home, in which to grow old, it was a perfect example of what I perceived (rightly, or wrongly) to be the ArchiFringe remit.

Moving beyond the gallery environment, in acquainting myself with the volumetric realities of how much found rubble it takes to fill a gabion cage (a, literal, tonne), I also had the pleasure of satisfying a desire to design and build, relinquished of bureaucracy, thanks to Here&Now’s Space To Sit event.

That this previous paragraph highlights an underlying selfishness, in terms of my own personal gain, is undeniable and, arguably, a common thread running through any such initiative – made evident by the overriding prevalence of groups constituted by ‘creatives’ that tend to assemble to participate in such things. The true engagement of the community is a difficult goal to achieve. In this instance, the considerable legwork undertaken, by Here&Now, in rehoming the various benches, across the city, ensures that the project leaves as broad a legacy as possible. A demonstration of the determination to reach out to as many as possible, as opposed to simply offering the few an opportunity to scratch an itch that’s often unreachable.

If the trajectory of 2016’s events is continued in 2017, we are in safe hands.

Government bodies, local authorities and those organisations that set out to represent the profession should seek to engage in their fullest capacities -  those who wish to build a better future are already here, as the dismantling of existing entry barriers will reveal.

Chris Dobson is an architect based in Edinburgh