m.dorrian

What is it to 'teach' architectural design today? In a period marked by a loss of faith in the universal, one can no longer suppose it to be about the transmission of a set of truths. The tutor is less a 'teacher of' the student than a 'participant with' him/her in the architectural process.

When the destination of the project fails or becomes uncertain, its pursuit enters into a condition of inquiry that constantly redirects questions back to its own grounding - the 'brief' or originating text - which is now placed under a radical contingency. Thus the activity of the design studio inevitably emerges as a kind of research that develops under the question What if...?

This in turn unsettles even those aspects of architectural knowledge that seem most stable and straightforwardly transmissible - techniques - insofar as they are confronted with unexpected and problematic contexts and solicited for new performative possibilities.

RECENT DESIGN STUDIOS INCLUDE

THE AESTHETICS OF COMPRESSION

(March 2012, Tianjin University, China)

AFTERIMAGE

(Third Year B.Arch, Semester 2, 2010/11 Newcastle University)

SHADOWCATCHER

(Third Year MA, Semester 1, 2009/10 University of Edinburgh)

WARSZAWA: postsocialist city and its material prehistories.

(MArch 2007-2009 University of Edinburgh)

SELECTED INVITED LECTURES AND SEMINARS

‘Clouds of Architecture’, University of Michigan, USA, 12 February 2010

'Warszawa: Projects for the Post-Socialist City', University of Michigan, USA, 10 February 2010.

‘Tracking the City: Approaches to Warsaw’, Urban Change in Eastern and Central Europe: Social, Cultural and Architectural Transformations, Vilnius University, Lithuania, 12 December 2008.

‘Metis: 4 Projects’, CITUR2008, 2nd International Forum – City, Territory and Urbanism, Santiago de Compostella, Spain, 3-5 December 2008 (plenary).

‘Euphoria and Vertigo Beside the Thames: Two Aerial Views’, Eyes Over London: Reimagining the Metropolis in the Age of Aerial Vision, University of Westminster/Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 15 November 2008 (keynote).

‘Vertigo and Transparency’, The Aerial View, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, 13 October 2008.

‘The London Eye: Aeriality, Spectacle and the “Exhibitionary Complex”’, Institute of Art History, University of Warsaw, 30 May 2008.

‘Stealth, Monstrosity, and the Grotesque’, Department of Critical and Historical Studies lecture series: Fantasy and the Grotesque, Royal College of Art, London, 31 January, 2008.

‘Diagrams, Miniatures and the Aerial View’, University of Chicago Center in Paris, 8 December, 2007.

‘Google Earth: Beyond the Picturesque’, The Picturesque and Beyond: Landscape and Modernity, Gent Urban Studies Team/SMAK, Universiteit Gent, Gent, Belgium, 30 November, 2007.

‘Google Earth: Terrestrial Mediatization’, Media Architecture, Central Saint Martins Innovation, London, 12 September, 2007 (plenary).

‘Clouds of Architecture’, Radical Philosophy Biennial Conference: Materials and Materialisms, Birkbeck College, University of London, 12 May 2007.

‘The Wheel and the Dome’, Alice B Kaplan Humanities Center, Northwestern University, Chicago, USA, 6 May, 2005.

‘Of Skulls and Stealth: the Image of the New Military Technology’, Department of German, Northwestern University, Chicago, USA, 5 May, 2005

‘How the World Sees London’, The Clark Art Institute Annual Conference: Architecture Between Spectacle and Use, Williamstown, USA, 29 April 2005 (plenary).

‘Working through Representations’ (3 seminars), Rhode Island School Of Design, Providence, USA, 20-22 April, 2005.

‘Metis: Recent Work’, Rhode Island School Of Design, Providence, USA, 22 April, 2005.

‘Landscapes and Politics’, École Nationale Supérieure du Paysage, Versailles, France, 10 February, 2004.

‘Paysage urbain et changement des regards: le cas de la photographie aérienne’, Séminaire paysage urbain: genèse, représentations, enjeux contemporains, CNRS, Paris, France, 6 February 2004.