FX TALKS 053


Since 2004, RAAD Studio has been a future-focused design practice that unites architects, artists, designers, inventors, engineers, and craftspeople. Te breadth of its work includes the design of homes and interiors, art installations, and the rethinking of cities in the face of the climate crisis – which includes such projects as the Lowline in New York City


design, but it represents a fusion of digital modelling technologies and fabrication that was radical for its time.


Similarly, the way in which masons were able to model out the physics of the pointed arch, the buttress, and the three-part elevation, in late medieval Norman cathedrals, was a radical departure from previous Romanesque architecture. Instead of mimicking previous forms, Gothic masonry represented a form of problem-solving, prioritising structural efficiency to increase volume and light.


I think best with… (e.g. my hands/a pencil/ with a computer)


A cheap, yellow mechanical pencil.


I think best… (e.g. first thing in the morning/ last thing at night)


While I’m dreaming. If I go to sleep thinking about something, I get to walk/fly around spaces to envision design ideas.


I think best when… (e.g. in a gallery/at home/outside/over drinks/with friends/ on the bus)


I’m sketching, or when I’m bored…


Te thought that keeps me up at night is… Ha! Meeting payroll for my staff every two weeks…


Te thought that gets me out of bed each day is…


I recently got married, and my wife has a crazy, fancy La Marzocco espresso machine. It makes incredible coffee, but it makes terrible coffee if you don’t know what you’re doing. Anyway, I start obsessing about it about an hour before I actually wake up.


Do you like to think with, or think against? Against. I think we often rely on the momentum of what folks have been doing before us, but virtually everything in the world can be rethought, and usually for the better!


fxtalks.co.uk


Videos of previous speakers can be viewed at fxtalks.co.uk


If you weren’t a designer/architect, where do you think your way of thinking would have led you?


I have a lot of interests, from history to palaeontology and archeology, to guitar, to origami, to physics. I think the thing that most intrigues me is space exploration, and I probably would be in that field had I not decided to go into design.


Could you describe radical thinking in three words? Rethink it all.


practitioners who learn how best to efficiently harness its possibilities will likely come to dominate the field.


Could you recommend a book/article/blog that inspired your thinking? PBS Space Time is a fantastic learning tool that explains how the universe works while also managing to capture a sense of wonder at how


vast the universe is. Having a sense of awe inspires our curiosity and our sense of excitement in how to communicate ideas to others via design.


Could you name two buildings/pieces of furniture that you consider radical designs of their time, or perhaps still to this day? Te Guggenheim in Bilbao isn’t my favourite


What’s the most radical thing you’ve come across today or this week?


My mother-in-law is going through radiation for cancer, and what I realised is that it works by the same principle as Nathan Myhrvold’s mosquito laser: three beams triangulate in three dimensions, in order to burn where the beams all meet in precise space.


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