To introduce myself, my working life has always been focused on inspiring people, intriguing buildings and beguiling landscapes.
When I discuss the present, I'm informed by the past and vice versa. I write about the achievements of determined, even forgotten, women and men, I celebrate and discuss architecture of quality, both old and new, while I have a particular liking for Utopian experiments and unlikely places.
One thing leads to another, unlikely connections emerge. That's the way my world goes round.
News 2024
Writing:
Excellent Essex Old Street Publishing, hardback (Sept. 2019) paperback (April 2021)
Talking, including podcasts
Dr Simon Machin and I on Octavia Hill, Episode 31 http://redheavenproject.com/episodes/octaviahill
An Essex walk with Michael Landy https://firstsite.uk/essex-way-walks/
Odes on Essex, BBC R3 Essay series, The Essex Way, https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-essex-way/id471685852?i=1000507050903
Gresham College: Britain's First Environmentalist. Marking 400 years since John Evelyn's birth. Livestreamed October 29, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOik751LhHk
Participant in Princeton Womxn in Design and Architecture conference on Minnette de Silva, March 2021. https://wda.princeton.edu/conference/2021/minnette-de-silva-constructive-dialogues
Other writing
https://drawingmatter.org/growing-up-modern-childhoods-in-iconic-homes-2021-review/
Essay on Battersea in TfL publication to mark the public artwork at Battersea Power Station (Northern Line spur). Sept. 2022.
Commemoration of Colin Ward's centenary in 2023, online essay commissioned by Bristol Ideas Festival
Essay around 'Hage', a walled public garden designed for development area in Brunnshog outside Lund by Norwegian practice, Brendeland & Kristoffersen. (2022)https://raangen.se/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/hage_folder_eng_web.pdf
Contribution, North Bucks Monorail City, in Extinct: A Compendium of Obsolete Objects (Reaktion, 2021)
Introduction to facsimile of Nikolaus Pevsner's King Penguin The Leaves of Southwell (Five Leaves Publications, 2023)
Still on Essex
Chapter 10, 'A case study in vulnerability: Bradwell A, a trial environment for nuclear power' in ed. Dr Johanna Dale. St. Peter-on-the-Wall: Heritage and landscape on the North Sea coast (UCL Press, summer 2023. open access)
Chapter: 'Plotlands to New Towns' in Radical ESSEX (Cornerstone Publications 2018)
Recent reviews, journalism and other news
Apollo Magazine, regular features and online contributions, LRB blogs.
Co-judge in biography category of Architecture Book of the Year awards, 2023
Awarded Hon FRIBA in 2023.
@gilliandarley
@gmdarley