The Bartlett’s Flagship CRUNCH Series Returns for the 2024-25 Academic Year

The Bartlett School of Architecture’s new research-driven and practice-led seminar series, CRUNCH, returns for the 2024–25 academic year.

CRUNCH is curated by the school’s Co-Directors of Public Programming, Albert Brenchat-Aguilar and Déborah López Lobato.

Our line-up of industry-leading speakers will explore the multifaceted dimensions of ‘dating’ through an architectural lens. Here, ‘dating’ transcends the usual understanding of romantic relationships and instead becomes a metaphorical and literal framework for exploring temporal, spatial, social and technological dimensions of architectural practice.

The seminars will consider ‘dating’ in the context of:

• Data processing and capitalism, colonialism, carbon dating and the anthropocene, capitalocene, plantationocene and molysmocene.
• Predicting futures, marking time, epochs and age in the context of migration, conflict and love.
• Digital romance, matching and social media algorithms.
• Ageing and tradition, the linear conceptions of time and revolutionary time.
• Memorialising and archiving, documenting, curating and building monuments.
• Reconciliation and reparations, justice and remediation.

Join us for a series of conversations decoding the past, present and future of connections, societal structures and the spaces we create and inhabit.

Please note: This term, CRUNCH will take place from 18:30–20:00 on Mondays at The Bartlett School of Architecture, Room G.12, 22 Gordon Street, London. The events are first-come, first-seated and have limited capacity.

Schedule

30 September

Data Mourning

Speaker: Marina Otero Verzier (Columbia University, GSAPP) 
Respondent: Nai Lee Kalema (The Bartlett) 
Chair: Prof Peg Rawes (The Bartlett) 

07 October

Making Sense: Non-Human Centred Design

Speaker: Boonserm Premthada (Bangkok Project Studio) 
Respondent: Prof Nayanika Mathur (Oxford University)  
Chair: Dr Kostas Grigoriadis (The Bartlett) 

21 October

Intoxicated: Race, Disability, and Chemical Intimacy across Empire

Speaker: Mel Y. Chen (UC Berkeley)
Respondent: Nerea Calvillo (University of Warwick)
Chair: Prof Tim Waterman (The Bartlett)

28 October

Platformers 2: Architecture through the Fields

Speakers: Fernando Portal (Núcleo de Lenguaje y Creación, UDLA) and Shumi Bose (Central Saint Martins)
Chair: Thomas Aquilina (The Bartlett)

11 November

The Nature of Media: Between Media Archaeologies and Ecomedia

Speakers: Prof Jussi Parikka (Aarhus) and Prof Antonio López (Author) 
Chairs: Jessica In and Dr Fiona Zisch (The Bartlett)

25 November

Waves: Feminist Intersections in Architecture

Speakers: Tumpa Husna Yasmin Fellows, Neba Sere and Dr Lo Marshall (The Bartlett) 
Respondent: Dr Torsten Lange (HSLU) 
Chairs: Dr Polly Gould and Prof Jane Rendell (The Bartlett)

Image: DALL·E assisted by Marina Otero