There are two occupations of architecture - the architect and the user. Both make architecture - the former by design, the latter by use. But the terms 'architect' and 'user' are not mutually exclusive: they exist within each other. Just as the architect is a user as well as a creator, the user can be an (illegal) architect, occupying and making architecture through both use and design. Occupying Architecture explores the relationship between the architect, the user and architecture, revealing that architecture is not just a building but that it is the relation between an object and its occupant. The contributors discuss how and why architectural production and discourse ignores the user. Beginning with the architect, the book proceeds to explore models for architectural practice that actively engage the issue of use, and concludes with examination of the user. Occupying Architecture proposes a complete re-working of the relations between design and experience to transform practices of the architect, and ways of seeing and using architecture. Architecture can be made by anyone and of anything: it is a question not an answer.
Contributors: Jonathan Hill, Mark Cousins, Katerina Ruedi, Lesley Naa Norle Lokko, Jeremy Till, Fat, Carlos Villanueva Brandt, Muf, Paul Davies, Ben Godber, Iain Borden, Philip Tabor, Jane Rendell. Iain Borden, The Bartlett, University College London, Mark Cousins, Architectural Association, Paul Davies, South Bank University and Architectural Association, Fat, Greenw