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After much sweat and tears I have a hard copy of my CV / portfolio! Should you be lucky enough to receive one of these in the new year and have absolutely no intention of employing me I'd really appreciate it back, they take a very long time to make! Hope you enjoy them.

A PDF can be downloaded here

In a world made unsafe for self sufficiency, suburban architecture can be described as an attempt to create a kind of oasis in which every tree & every brick is accounted for, to exclude the unpredictable as far as possible from every day life.

The fact of having increasingly sophisticated weaponry deters the enemy more and more. At that point war is no longer in its execution, but in its preparation. The perpetuation of war is what I call Pure War, war which isn’t acted out in repetition, but in infinite preparation.

The whole of the warring nations are engaged, not only soldiers, but the entire population, men, women and children. The fronts are everywhere to be seen. The trenches are dug in the towns and streets. Every village is fortified. Every road is barred. The front line runs through the factories. The workmen are soldiers with different weapons but the same courage.

Today the three plates of Suburbia, Industry and Warfare are connected on an unprecedented scale. This highly polemical project investigates what could be done to make the system we already live in more efficient? How far could the combined logic of Pure War and Capitalism take us in the future?

There are seven cages, each travels the globe targeting the cities responsible for the most amount of environmental damage that year. When in transit each cage is carried by a platoon of environmentally friendly zeppelins.

Upon arriving at a new city this cage is lowered to a height of 20m, then dropped to ensure its ground spikes purchase firm bedding. Once inside the cage no person will willingly leave it, for they love the fame the cage brings.

Almost immediately after the cage has landed zeppelins begin to fill it with prefabricated cubes. These cubes initially carry TV studios, medical supplies and emergency rations [in that order].

After approximately 235 seconds of the cage landing the four corner columns cut off all communication in and out, save for companies wealthy enough to afford a cube and transmission rites.

Season 6 has just begun!

There is much rejoicing, and not just because such an architecturally sublime object has appeared:

The people most responcible for environmental damage [who couldn't give a fuck about their wives SUVs being taxed, as they have too much money] are now identified globally in person.

Also there is a new reality TV series. The huge revenues generated from advertising will be used to pay lawyers to negotiate damages to a city and to prosecute environmentally unfriendly companies. They will win every case, for they always do.

After all the petrol has run out of the cars the inhabitants of the cage will be forced to become totally sustainable: Their lives depend on it. A cycle cube will provide bicycles, promoting their use not through design but rather TV exposure and cultural change. The worlds population, exposed to environmental issues on an unprecedented scale will frown upon non sustainable methods of transport, cycling will boom globally. The inhabitants will be forced to grow crops in small urban conditions, their forced innovation providing an example to us all.

After 400 days the cage will move to its next city. The remaining inhabitants will be famous, but their fame will pass, who knows perhaps they will cycle to work and start farming chickens on their balcony.

Competition two of us worked on at YRM architects over two and a half weeks with very little sleep!

The 500,000sqm scheme was comprised of predominantly residential accommodation with office and retail included as supporting elements. The brief was exceptionally detailed and very difficult to hit given an enormous amount of site restrictions.

The results of the competition as of mid Oct have not been announced.

The ring road in Brussels is eight kilometers long averaging 60 meters in width. In places there are up to 16 lanes occupied by cars, it is a huge scar on the city that has gradually oozed wider over the last 50 years; public space has given way to larger roads and more car parks as the city welcomes outsiders with their money, nowadays the ring road feels more like the original fortifications on which it traverses than the grand boulevard it replaced in the late 50s. Whilst the city may have benefited internationally and financially from an increase in visitors and activity it has been at the expense of the local: apparently convenience rules all. Isn’t it just easier to have more parking spaces…?

This project reconsiders the public space around the ring road as a productive entity. Firstly it proposes an evolving harvestable crop planting strategy; initially residing in space deemed unusable but with time expanding into parking spaces and roads so as to ensure the government meet their traffic reduction targets. The planting will begin to reduce pollution, both noise and air.

Secondly the introduction of refinery elements enables the harvesting of crops to produce ethanol, which in turn can be fed back into modified cars to offset pollution or turned into vodka with the introduction of distilled and filtered water. The vodka can then be used to lubricate social encounters at public events held around the road.

Thirdly by allowing users to shape the public space with by-product materials from harvesting and refining. Strategic cutting and simple construction techniques will allow groups or individuals to build housing for various temporary events or activities in the future with the aim of increasing the diverse use of public space through them.

This group Live Project entailed the setting up of an Architecture Society for Sheffield. It researched what role we thought most appropriate for the centre to play within the city, and what methods of engagement could be utilised. Over six weeks we put on an exhibition, made presentations, begun the construction of a website, engaged with local residents and schools and most importantly left a framework of people to take the Society further after we finished.

This was a research project looking into the Live Projects at Sheffield University architecture department. In researching, documenting and analysing Live Projects, we [IYO] tried to question mainstream, typical architectural methods and investigate alternative architectural practice. The live-projects at Sheffield embody a huge diversity of academic and practical principles. They are neither wholly alternative, nor typical, however the range of clients, users, processes, products and outcomes, provide an invaluable contribution to the students education and the services to the communities that are affected.

The work we undertook has been left as a blueprint to help inform the Architecture School about the future direction for Live Projects.

The matt conveys urbanistic qualities in an airport that is neither urban, suburban or rural. It scales down the spaces occupied to a more human scale whilst providing intrigue and wonder.

A system of streets and lanes contradicts the direct, prescribed route that airport buildings offer. Potentially disorientating, but satisfying to the human psyche when there is time to waste in this sped up world.

Courtyards cut through the block brining verticality to a place that has forgotten what its true purpose is. Internal and compartmentalised the building escapes the vast open spaces of the airport lounge and its acres of tarmac runway.

In today’s consumer based society escapism is sought after more than ever before. Gambling, previously a solution to this problem, has become so ubiquitous and widely accepted that it offers a diluted form of its pervious potency. What is proposed is a place to escape to, where the outside world becomes insignificant, a place where gambling is no longer mainstream, it becomes special.

As you travel through and down into the casino through a maze of cellular spaces connection the outside world decreases. Mesh surrounding the building becomes denser so as to allow less external light in, the vibrancy and luminosity of the casino increases so that you become more dependent on its artificial light. Gambling stakes increase so as to requiring more concentration.

For this project we were asked to design a bridge to span the river Avon in Bath, the bridge would link to areas of the city together previously totally detached, it would act as a focal point for the regeneration of the area. We created 6 huge beams out of concrete to span the river, structurally redundant material was subtracted out of this matrix to form functional elements. In this way spaces become defined by the absence of building. The building housed a restaurant that seated 100 but also allowed for more flexible activities when it was not in use.