The Luandan littoral is constantly shifting. Territorial changes along the coast show that the Ilha de Luanda, a barrier peninsula created by sandbars, debris, and sediment, was a much longer and wider sandbank in the 16th and 17th centuries than in the 20th and 21st centuries. The volatility of the area largely derives from natural phenomena, from a constant battle between water and land. It was only in the 20th century, during both the colonial and post-colonial periods, that consistent large-scale infrastructural attempts were made to stabilise the shifting ground of the Ilha de Luanda. Yet, these actions have not been entirely successful. This lecture will focus on the large-scale coastal protection plans implemented in Luanda attempting to reduce the impacts of the natural phenomena that had affected the Ilha over the years. In 1925, 1940s and 1950s several coastal protection works were implemented, employing artificial nourishment of the Ilha’s coast. All these actions proved to be ineffective and incapable of achieving its goals. In the post-independence period, ambitious coastal protection plans were also launched amid many uncertainties. It appears that those who criticised the older (colonial) protection works with such assurance had still failed to find the ideal solution. The sea has never ceased to impose its erosive action, progressively shrinking beaches, and rendering the Ilha coastline extremely vulnerable. The numerous doubts and uncertainties presented in all the coastal protection plans confirm that, despite all the expert and specialist studies, there was always room for ‘improvised’ solutions. In fact, the flexibility and adaptability of the plans was viewed as normal. The ambiguity between planned and unplanned, or formal and informal, design and engineering strategies would remain a common and widespread feature in postcolonial Luanda.

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Paulo Moreira presented this lecture as a keynote to the Postgraduate Research Forum Event, on 6th July 2021.

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This film shows an excerpt of an interview in which the architect Victor Oddo discusses a recent design project by the Elemental architecture office in the Araucanía region of Chile. In her PhD research, Blanca is concerned with the Mapuche, the indigenous inhabitants of that region who have been fighting for the right to their ancestral land since the Spanish first occupied it in the 1540s. She critically examines the large-scale removal of native forest and the expansion of monoculture plantations, both of which began to destroy the region’s biodiversity when Augusto Pinochet introduced neoliberal reforms in the mid-1970s. At first sight, Elemental’s Künu project for the reconstruction of a ceremonial place for the Mapuche seems to support the indigenous community. However, questions remain about the involvement of architects who support large wood companies such as Arauco and the financial interests of those companies in exploiting the cultural and natural richness of the region.

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Victor Oddo is a founding partner of the Elemental architecture office in Santiago, Chile, and the project manager of the Künu project.

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This interview with Ernst Langthaler explores a key question in Philipp’s PhD research concerning the conflicts that developed in 19th- and 20th-century Austria between farming culture and industrial infrastructure. These created spatial anomalies and legal constructions in which concentration camps, such as the one in Aflenz an der Sulm, a small peri-urban town in southern Austria, became possible. Philipp’s interview with Ernst Langthaler discusses the history of agricultural subsidies under National Socialism, in the post-war era, and under the current policy of the European Union which aims to weather the demands of a global market.

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Ernst Langthaler is an agricultural historian focusing on rural and food history in the modern era within a globally connected world. Langthaler teaches at the Institute for Social and Economic History of the Johannes Kepler Universität Linz and heads the Institute of Rural History in Sankt Pölten, Austria.

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For work on her PhD, Elisavet Hasa conducted an interview with Daniel Barber to discuss her research on emergency infrastructure that was developed by private and NGO initiatives in the wake of the austerity and debt crisis affecting Greece since 2010. In this interview, Barber explains his concept of the “planetary interior” and what he termed “anxiety with predictability” during the 2020–21 coronavirus pandemic. Similarities are revealed to Elisavet’s research on solidarity and care-giving in Greece, such as community projects for unofficial health clinics and pharmacies.

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Daniel Barber is an architectural historian and an associate professor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design who is also active in the field of environmental humanities.

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This film presents excerpts from a discussion with Professor Geraint John on the development of stadia design from the vantage point of his experience as a legislator, architect and educator. The focus of the conversation is on the spectator experience, advancements in construction technology and the increasing demand for multifunctionality and spectator safety.

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Geraint John was the chief architect and head of the technical unit for sport in the United Kingdom Sports Council for more than 20 years. In the early 1980s, Geraint co-wrote the Handbook of Sports and Recreational Building Design. Following the Hillsborough disaster in 1981, Geraint led the discussions on the future of stadia in the UK. In 1995 he co-published a stadia design and development guide that was revised in several editions.

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Before redevelopment occurs in urban areas, photographs, data and descriptive texts detailing the conditions of places and their contexts are often compiled into documents referred to as character statements or character appraisals. How might we approach the design of such publications as expressive forms of communication? This interview with artist and designer Joe Gilmore considers ways in which the curation of photographic imagery and text, particularly in the format of a book, can help to address notions of place, identity and character in architecture and visual culture.

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Joe Gilmore initiates and produces independent curatorial, artistic and research projects that focus on typography, the artist’s book, audio art and graphic design.

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This film presents a recorded excerpt of a telephone call Maria made with photographer Diana Walker. As part of her research on corporate headquarters in Silicon Valley, Maria asked the photographer about her famed portrait of Steve Jobs, taken in the living room of Jobs’ recently purchased single detached ranch house in Woodland, California, in 1982. For two decades, from the Reagan to the George W. Bush years, Walker was the White House photographer for Time magazine. She developed a signature behind-the-scenes style of journalistic portraiture, exemplified in this series of photographs in which the bare living room is the most emblematic, depicting the CEO’s idealized yet fraught way of life. Much like Jobs’ signature Issey Miyake black turtleneck or the ring shape of its headquarters, the company’s signature asceticism and struggle for abstraction are not the focus of the image, but are extended to us, the consumers of the company’s products and of the image itself.

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