Ongoing research-led design projects:
Get in touch if you are working in any of these spaces and wish to discuss collaboration; Future of Sex work, Queer Futures, Spatial behaviours, SSD [speculative spatial design]
Collaborations
We are partnered with Experimental Realism, the online platform for speculative architecture, design and pedagogy, which includes;
theLIST /A global index of speculative design practitioners
thePROJECTSTORE /A global collection of speculative design projects created by students from Universities around the world.
theBOOK /Published by RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) Publishing (May 2022) this is part of the “Design Studio” series aimed specifically at students and academics operating within the fields of architecture and its wider territories.
#ExRe /A FREE 6 month student/graduate mentoring programme with a speculative design / futures practitioner: designed to build community, encourage open discourse and facilitate the transition from education into practice
We are open to working with other organisations, please do get in touch.
Consulting
We have worked with UK government offices and the world’s leading data, insights and consulting company, to provide discipline specific specialist knowledge.
“As an expert contributor to our Future of Film consulting project, Gem Barton challenged and stretched our client’s understanding of the ways in which film and media could be consumed in 2030+. She made creative connections between emergent forms of production and content, and the design of the places and spaces in which they might be experienced, elevating our project output and making our recommendations more holistic, disruptive and future-facing.”
Charlie Warwick, Senior Strategy Consultant, Kantar.
Stories
We tell stories to make you think - these manifest in many different ways - essays, scripts, performances, designs and research projects. Explore some of these below.
‘Architecture 2.0’
Architecture 2.0 - “In exchange for your choking Architecture 1.0 I can offer this lively, intelligent, more flexible and intuitive model, Architecture 2.0.”
Please contact if you would like a pdf copy of the essay ‘Architecture 2.0’ featured in the book ‘A Gendered Profession: The Question of Representation in Space Making (2016)’
Parts
This work deals with the themes of duality, ownership, control, objectification and humanisation of space through the experiential mystery of (in)animates. Presented as a series of short speculative narratives, the plot-lines test our conditioned understanding of spatial and objectified relationships. The content can be read as light, touching on themes such as 'object-as-character' but sneaks into darkness to consider space and object as non-consenting third-party accomplices in acts of addiction, ego, sex and tragedy.
From the opening paragraph of ‘USED’ [in the series Parts]
“I get used everyday. It’s my purpose in life I suppose. I am perfunctory and facilitative, a platform for the work-a-day. He bought me in 2012. I was a mistake. An impulse buy direct from an abandoned warehouse. He looked us all up and down; Russian, Turkish, Polish, he chose me. I was transported, along with the others in the back of truck, no blankets, no water. We were packed in like cattle, the thought of a better life, of love and care and attention keeping us going. I arrived, tired. It took 2 men to carry me up the narrow stairs of his office; they laid me down in the middle of the room and instructed my owner that I was now his responsibility. I was signed for. My life began. Or so I thought.”
From the opening scenes of ‘SHOT’ [in the series Parts]
He breathes in long and hard, puffs out his chest and counts, one, two, three. It may only be lunchtime but this is the ninth person to stop in the street to take a photograph of him. “Snap away young man, snap a-way.” He scoffs. “Oh boy I must be looking fine in this winter sunshine!” he says without a hint of humility. “Did you see him? That guy in the glasses and black coat?”
“What guy in a black coat?” She said insinuating his ego must be playing tricks on him. Again.
“There he is! There!” Gesturing to the pavement on the other side of the street. “Quick come to the window!
“My Dad is Better Than Yours”
MAScontext / 32 / Character / p224-251
“My Dad is Better Than Yours” is set at a prestigious architecture awards ceremony. The characters tell their story; they have memories, are self-aware and reflective, and offer an alternative view of our relationship with the built environment. They discuss their conception, their growth and development, their alliance with their creators, and ultimately their users/owners. The interviews explore the notion that “you are more than your creations and your creations are more than you . . .” an experiment in architecture, adaption, and identity—expression, cohesion, and transference between creator and creation.