I just returned from the World Architecture Festival, although it’s only slightly worldly, nor festival-y…it’s a conference of smartly dressed men donning the latest understated greyscale garment, infiltrated by few others...
Regardless of first impressions, there was time to enjoy the mêlée of gorgeous work presented by a unique range of characters, from the witty and charismatic, to the confused and obnoxious. A chance to watch judges challenge the architects with both piercing questions, and less so piercing questions…”Your name is BIG, why are you so small?” to which the slight and well postured defendant quickly retorted “because we’re busy”….love it.
It was a chance to meet and greet the architectural famous, to speak directly to directors, designers, critics, and commentators. It was a chance to rub shoulders, ever so gently, with a group of people that are ever so slightly trying to change the world. But this was not a political rally, nor a dogmatic affair of banners and hard hitting punch lines. There was no over riding motif of radical change, it was a collective of people who made comment, made gestures of change, or hinted at new form. Some dared a little too far into the realms of conceptual design, and some where a little too delicate and floundering. But all the work on offer had one simple, unifying property, to make the world a better place.
Now I immediately shun, or at least squint slightly at token lines such as the one just written, but without churning over reams of text to fully articulate something slightly classier and devoid of cliché, it remains a simple truth.
And with that, I share with you the link to WAF for you to explore the great mass of projects on offer, and in particular, the firm that I have a slight affiliation with, Desitecture.
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