Tent Poles in the Ground is a collection of twenty-one texts by Stephen Bates that positions writing as a core discipline of architectural practice — not a supplement to it, but inseparable from the acts of building and teaching.
About This Book
Spanning themes from domesticity and the city to landscape and design process, these essays trace both the enduring principles behind Bates's architectural thinking and the shifts that thirty years of practice inevitably produce. Where earlier volumes in this lineage — Papers (2001), Papers 2 (2007), and Papers 3 (2016) — were written in collaboration with Jonathan Sergison, Tent Poles is Bates's own voice, though the conviction that architectural thought is always collaborative runs throughout. For practitioners and students who take seriously the relationship between critical writing and built work, this is an essential document of a considered, sustained practice.
Key Features
- 312 pages of twenty-one essays spanning architecture, urbanism, landscape, and design process
- Part of a lineage including Papers (2001), Papers 2 (2007), and Papers 3 (2016), the latter written with Jonathan Sergison, co-founder of Sergison Bates architects
- Published by Quart, 2016
What You'll Discover
- How writing functions as a form of practice at Sergison Bates — not documentation of decisions already made, but a mode of thinking through architecture
- The fundamental principles informing Bates's approach to domesticity, urban form, and landscape, traced across three decades
- How shifts in architectural thinking accumulate over a long career, and what it means to hold convictions while remaining open to change
- The argument that thinking and making buildings are both inherently collaborative processes, regardless of who signs the work
About the Author
Stephen Bates leads the main London office of Sergison Bates architects and is closely involved in all projects from inception to completion. He graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1989 and gained professional experience in London and Barcelona. He has taught at a number of schools of architecture, including the Architectural Association in London.
Specifications
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 312
- Dimensions: 180 x 130 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783037613429
- Publisher: Quart
- Publication Date: 2016
Perfect For: Architects, architecture students, and educators interested in the intersection of critical writing and built practice, and in the sustained thinking of a contemporary European practice.