Author Archives: Thomas-Bernard Kenniff

Thomas-Bernard is a PhD candidate in Architectural History and Theory at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. His principal research interests are design theory, urban design, and public space. These fall within an expanded field of architectural studies overlapping with the visual arts, social anthropology, political science, philosophy, and literature. Thomas-Bernard’s PhD thesis, supervised by Jan Birksted and Iain Borden, draws on an extensive case study of the Barking Town Square in London, England, to investigate how a theory of ‘design as assemblage’ describes an ethical position to the question of designing for others in a complex and heterogeneous public realm. In this case, the notion of assemblage is developed through the dialogism of Mikhaïl Bakhtin to suggest both the open dialectic relationships between physical elements as well as the dialogic relationships between people.

Before moving to London, Thomas-Bernard studied architecture and mathematics at the University of Waterloo, Canada, where he worked closely with Philip Beesley. Professionally, he has collaborated with, among others, Coll Leclerc Arquitectos (Barcelona), Arquitectonica (Madrid), and MSDL (Montréal) with whom he recently was lead designer for the public realm project of the Grand Foyer Culturel de la Place des Arts. Thomas-Bernard has also served as a committee member for the Berkeley Prize Competition since 2001. He grew up travelling back and forth between Québec City and Montréal.

Hide and seek in Lafayette Park

Running parallel to the back of each row of townhouses is a long subterranean corridor, cramped, artificially lit but still dark, with pipes and cables running through its length, moisture trickling down its unfinished concrete walls, it’s the mechanical and services spine of the block. Garbage cans are lined up at each door marking the [...]

The lighter note: crenelation in Scotland, Québec and Spain

Now for something a little lighter. A recent trip to Scotland and a wrong turn into a suburb of Edinburgh brought us to this suburban gem,  a heroic reminder that yes, a man’s home is indeed his castle. It reminded me I had once thought of posting photos of two similar meaningful roadside architectural attractions [...]

This post started…

Yesterday the 2011 Bartlett PhD Research Projects conference took place. In the comments period following presentations one question was repeated several times and particularly caught my attention. How did your interest in this topic start? What is the starting point?
It came back to mind after the event concluded because to me it illustrates we might [...]

Architecture and social change seminar at UCL occupation

Last night Owen Hatherley gave a talk at the UCL occupation in the Jeremy Bentham Room as part of a seminar on ‘Architecture and social change’. I will attempt to summarise the main points in this post and leave the criticism for the comments section.
The broad topic of his talk was campus architecture and the [...]

Assemblage theory and the public realm

A loose reaction to this post by Patricia Simoes-Aelbrecht and thoughts on assemblage theory.
The dichotomy of public and private is something that has long been criticised in social theory. A common strand through Arendt (1956), Habermas (1962, 1992) and Sennett (1974) is that it is impossible, in Modern society, to speak of a clear boundary [...]

Through the minds of teenagers

In the book Participation, Claire Bishop underlines three common aspects of participatory art: the desire to create an active/thinking subject who will be able to formulate their own social/political position from the experience of the work; asserting a socially oriented and egalitarian position for themselves by ceding part of their authorship to participants; and the [...]

Barking from Without

cross-posted from barking-assemblage.org
Barking from Without was part of the 2010 Cities Methodologies exhibition and conference organised by the UCL Urban Lab. The exhibition took place at the Slade Research Centre on Woburn Square from 5 to 7 May 2010.

Barking from Without is an interactive installation presenting material from an ongoing case study of the new [...]

Suggested reading: “Art and Answerability” by Mikhaïl Bakhtin

Bakhtin, M. M. “Art and Answerability.”  Art and Answerability : Early Philosophical Essays. Eds. Michael Holquist and Vadim Liapunov. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990.
Art and Answerability, written in 1919, is Mikhail Bakhtin’s first published essay. This early text, written when the author was only 24 years old, is usually recognised as significant for two [...]

A Revaluation of Public Space in Toronto (1955-2005)

Paper presented at the 2009 Anglo-American Conference of Historians “Cities” in London.
You can download the full paper with images here.
INTRODUCTION
What we will look at in the next twenty minutes is a study of three iconic projects in Toronto that were all planned and built between the years 1955 and 2005: City Hall and Nathan Phillips [...]

Conference: Beyond Henri Lefebvre

WHAT: Interdisciplinary conference / call for contributions
WHEN: November 24-26th, 2009
WHERE: ETH Zurich
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: June 30th, 2009
www.henrilefebvre.org
From the website:
Urban Research and Architecture: Beyond Henri Lefebvre
The interdisciplinary conference Urban Research and Architecture: Beyond Henri Lefebvre brings together recent applications of Lefebvre’s theory in order to develop new concepts for the analysis of contemporary processes of urbanization [...]