Future Practice

by Rory Hyde

Designers around the world are carving out opportunities for new kinds of engagement, new kinds of collaboration, new kinds of design outcomes, and new kinds of practice; overturning the inherited assumptions of the design professions. Seventeen conversations with practitioners from the fields of architecture, policy, activism, design, education, research, history, community engagement and more, each representing an emergent role for designers to occupy. Whether the "civic entrepreneur," the "double agent," or the "strategic designer," this book offers a diverse spectrum of approaches to design, each offering a potential future for architectural practice. With a foreword by Dan Hill and interviews with Steve Ashton, ARM; Bryan Boyer, Helsinki Design Lab; Camila Bustamante; Mel Dodd, muf_aus; DUS Architects; Jeanne Gang, Studio Gang; Reinier de Graaf and Laura Baird, AMO; Conrad Hamann; Natalie Jeremijenko, xClinic; Indy Johar, 00:/;Bruce Mau; Arjen Oosterman and Lilet Breddels, Volume ; Todd Reisz; Wouter Vanstiphout, Crimson; Matt Webb, BERG; Marcus Westbury, Renew Newcastle; and Liam Young, Unknown Fields

Genres: Architecture, Design, Nonfiction

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Rory Hyde works across design, research, broadcasting and building. He studied architecture at RMIT University in Melbourne, where he also completed a PhD on emerging models of practice enabled by new technologies. He is contributing editor of Architecture Australia, and co-host of The Architects, a weekly radio show on architecture, which was presented in the Australian pavilion at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale. Based in Amsterdam since 2009, Rory has worked with Volume magazine, Al Manakh (Archis / AMO), MVRDV, the NAi, Viktor & Rolf and Mediamatic.

His first book Future Practice: Conversations from the Edge of Architecture is out now from Routledge.

Reviews

[Annick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rory Hyde, the author, should have been added in this list of interviewed practitioners and non-practitioners as he is an example of this architect's shifting role, as well. An architect that is no longer a solver, or does not merely build anymore. Rather he is part of these architects who play the role of mediator between the inhabitants, architecture and the built environment. One should say he is the witness of this so-called Generation Y or call-it-whatever-you-prefer, that is a generation that, whilst facing a severe crisis in the profession, views crisis positively, better as force.
Future Practices relates these changing contexts, namely: these practitioners and non-practitioners that shape our urban environment, this shift towards bottom-up approach to building, city-making, or simply site-recalibrating. From the educator, to the activist, to the generalist, each portrait reveal his/her daily practice with the specific context not only of economic depletion but also of other but very important contexts (population expansion, urban issues, ecological problems, health and well-being amongst many others). A must-have for all the actors that create, stimulate, improve the (un-)built environment: future practitioners but also architects, designers, activists, architecture-lovers, historians, editors, educators, curators, critics and the lambda.

[Avşar · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is my opinion that the conversations could go more to the edge of the architecture. Almost half of the interviews are only about the recent and quite conventional practices of architects, such as Bruce Mau and Indy Johar. On the other hand, definitions of and conversations with The Historian of the Present, The Near Future Inventor and The Professional Generalist are quite mind-opening.

[Deepak Prabhu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must read for students of architecture.
Provides a good direction to the question.. what next..

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A rare insight into what is arguably the more interesting aspect of architecture: the peripheral change of the role of the architects and the ways in which the architect can be practicing. An absolutely fascinating read, and as a practitioner myself, left me feeling optimistic about an industry that has been failing itself and society at large for some time now...

[Marty · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a mixed bag but overall a quality collection of interviews pointing towards an expanded definition of future practice.

[Chris Marmo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ostensibly about architecture, there's inspiration in here for designers of any kind. The book is a series of interviews with practitioners who are actively finding new ways of practicing.