AR Reading List 013: Emerging architecture

What exactly are the qualities that designate an architectural practice ‘emerging’? Since its beginnings in 1999 as an award to ‘discover talent in an as yet generally unrecognised generation of architects and designers’ the AR’s Emerging Architecture awards (AREA) have celebrated the pioneering ideas and creativity of architectural practices yet to ripen into the full-fruit worthy of heavy-hitting Gold Medals or Pritzker prizes. There is a belief that fresh thinking in architecture can bring a spirit of optimism amidst economic meltdown and ecological crisis.

This week’s Reading List assembles some fresh pickings from the history of AREA, giving a platform to the work of emerging architects and what it means for an office to grow. The judges of the 2020 awards, Sameep Padora of sP+a and Dorte Mandrup, both found commendation in previous editions of the awards. The reading list also addresses the context in which these practices emerge from: often one that is not entirely fertile ground.

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• 1999-2019 Emerging Architecture, Manon Mollard, AR November 2019 ‘The purpose of the awards is not to turn architects into ephemeral stars’

• Winners of 2019 Emerging Architecture awards Comunal Taller de Arquitectura: ‘we try to demonstrate that architecture is an exchange of knowledge’, Interview, AR December 2019 ‘We firmly believe that the problems we are currently facing at the local and global level can only be addressed collectively’

• Peter Davey Prize 2019 Domestic bliss: houses in Dublin, Eleanor Beaumont, AR June 2019 ‘In lieu of larger projects, modest footprints are populated with the embryos of complex thoughts and sketches. A limit in scale has been no limit for architectural ambition’’

• Poised for flight: Visitor centre in Denmark by Dorte Mandrup, Oliver Lowenstein, AR April 2018 ‘The Wadden Centre is both a signal and symptom of the Danish zeitgeist changes’

• Shiv Temple by sP+a, Wadeshwar, Maharashtra, India, Rob Gregory, AR August 2010 ‘One reading of the project suggests a mythical history whereby the ruined tower was discovered, repaired and adapted for the present community’

• Sou Fujimoto: ‘Foreigners don’t want really crazy things’, Naomi Pollock, AR October 2016 ‘The project’s merging of architecture and urbanism speaks volumes about where he may be headed in the future. Although small design challenges still excite Fujimoto, he is now thinking big’

• Klein Dytham architecture: ‘We don’t need any more grey boxes’, George Kafka, AR October 2016 ‘We’re obviously quite outgoing but we don’t really have a style’