Scaffold

Interviews with architects, artists and designers. Produced by the Architecture Foundation and hosted by Matthew Blunderfield. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. Remembering John Morgan

    HACE 1 H

    Remembering John Morgan

    The graphic designer John Morgan passed away last September at the age of 52. His final book, Baskerville’s Teardrop Explodes, was published this week, and to mark the occasion we've collected som reflections on Morgan and his work from some of his collaborators. These include, in order of appearance, Tom Weaver former editor of the AA files, Shumi Bose and Kieran Long, who both worked with Morgan on the 2012 Venice architecture Biennale, Ros Barr, who worked with Morgan on a altar design for St Augustine’s Church, Nick Hill, who was designing Morgan’s new studio before he passed away, and Tom Emerson, a director of 6a architects whose collaborations with Morgan extend across many years and projects.  You’ll note this list is relatively narrow and hews closely to the world of architecture. The more interviews we collected, the more we realised the scope of this memorial episode risked expanding into an entire series - there are so many people who’ve been changed by Morgan and his work, to say nothing of his students and studio colleagues and publishers, none of whom are featured here. This following voices are just a drop in the bucket in terms of conveying who John was and the influence he had.  Scaffold is an Architecture Foundation production, hosted by Matthew Blunderfield.  Download the London Architecture Guide App via the App Store or Google Play Become an Architecture Foundation Patreon member and be a part of a growing coalition of architects and built environment professionals supporting our vital and independent work.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    56 min
  2. Kenneth Frampton

    28/11/2025

    Kenneth Frampton

    Architectural historian Kenneth Frampton remembers the exact moment of his political awakening. Arriving in the United States in 1965, flying over the blazing island of Manhattan and suddenly grasping the visibility of capitalist power there—“a ferocious panorama” of light, cars and consumption that stood in stark contrast to what he calls the “concealed” capitalism of mid-century Britain. From that moment, his architectural writing became inseparable from politics: shaped by Hannah Arendt’s idea of the space of appearance, by phenomenology’s insistence on embodied experience, and by a Marxist attention to exploitation, power and the global neoliberal order. In this first episode of a two-part interview, Kenneth Frampton, arguably the most celebrated and influential architectural thinker of the past half century, looks back over nearly six decades of his writing and teaching. In the first half of the conversation he addresses the idea critical regionalism as “an architecture of resistance” to commodification, connects phenomenology to political agency rather than aesthetic escapism, and defends his own “operative” criticism—writing that openly aims to influence how architects practice. He is unsparing about the state of architectural education, where social-justice rhetoric often displaces serious engagement with construction and craft, and where capitalism itself remains strangely unnamed. Along the way he reflects on being, as he puts it, “a Marxist who believes in phenomenology,” on the tectonic poetics of building, and, closing out the episode, he reckons with becoming a father at 52 and a grandfather in his mid-90s—thinking about legacy, continuity and what it means for architects, in Álvaro Siza’s phrase, not to invent anything, but to transform reality. Scaffold is an Architecture Foundation production, created and hosted by Matthew Blunderfield.  Become an Architecture Foundation Patreon member and be a part of a growing coalition of architects and built environment professionals supporting our vital and independent work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    56 min
  3. playbody

    13/11/2025

    playbody

    Today’s episode considers a part of the built environment that’s often overlooked in architectural discourse, yet has become one of the most vibrant sites of experimentation in recent years: the nightclub. Since the post-COVID resurgence of nightlife, we’ve seen club spaces music festivals become laboratories again — places where architects, artists and designers, artists test how bodies move, gather, and connect. After years of enforced separation, there’s been a renewed appetite for intimacy, tactility, and collective presence. Nightclubs have stepped into that space, foregrounding not just sound and spectacle, but how architecture can invite touch, trust, and new forms of social closeness. There are few people exploring that frontier more boldly than today’s guests: Thea Arde and Joel Jjio, the duo behind playbody. Playbody is far more than a club night — it’s an ongoing design research project that treats the dancefloor as a site of architectural inquiry. Their events incorporate sculptural objects, spatial interventions, and choreographic prompts that encourage people to rediscover their own physicality in relation to others. In a time when digital life keeps pulling us apart, their work asks a simple but radical question: how can design rebuild social intimacy? Today we’ll talk about how playbody grew from a nightlife concept into a design studio, how they prototype through parties, and why they see the club as a critical testing ground for the future of spatial practice. Scaffold is an Architecture Foundation production. Support our work by becoming a member on Patreon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1 h 10 min

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Interviews with architects, artists and designers. Produced by the Architecture Foundation and hosted by Matthew Blunderfield. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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