Handbook

Democracy hinges on the principle of popular debate, and questions of demotic engagement in the shaping of the built environment are more topical, and more controversial, than ever. Yet fewer and fewer newspapers (and almost no broadcast media) employ architecture critics in any form or role. Where criticism does happen, further, it is generally relegated to the ‘arts’ pages or time-slots, effectively minimizing its exposure and greatly narrowing its demographic.

This course aims to give you an understanding of the different genres of architectural and urban writing, differentiating according to purpose, style, audience and lexicon. It aims to impart an understanding of how words are used in shaping cities, how media and publishing work in relation to the built environment and some of the essential skills in producing publication-quality text.