Expanding Fields of Architectural Discourse and Practice: Curated Works from the P.E.A.R. Journal

Abstract

The architectural magazine P.E.A.R.: Paper for Emerging Architectural Research was founded in 2009 by architects Rashid Ali, Matthew Butcher and Julian Kruger, curator Megan O’Shea and graphic designer Avni Patel. The provocation to generate such an endeavour was activated in part when, as we embarked on our careers in architecture, we became rapidly disenfranchised by a basic lack of critical and reflective dialogue in the daily operations of professional architectural practice outside an academic context. We felt the majority of design and discourse was not seeking to understand its purpose or to ask why it manifests in the way that it does. Instead, what we observed from our position in London – one of the world’s centres of commerce – was a profession focused almost exclu- sively on the production of buildings: design intent seemed to be entirely dictated by the market and the speed at which it could be produced. The majority of work did not seek a new way of practicing or question the role of architecture, even though the world around was changing rapidly with key events such as the financial crash of 2008, the housing crisis and the need for architecture, as a key player in the design and construction of the environments in which we live and dwell, to respond to the increasingly prominent effects of climate change.