Ian Martin
One man's journey into architecture, with fellow travellers Dusty Penhaligon, architecture critic Darcy Farquear'say, RIPBA president Dame Helen Button, magic arborealist Isis de Cambray and HRH Prince CharlesIan Martin columns
The furniture’s bright, the furniture’s orange…
Ian Martin takes a trip to Milan Furniture Fair’s smart periphery
If it ain’t quaint, don’t fix it
Ian Martin digests a new listed buildings policy, titled ‘Quaintity Street’.
The space-time continuum continuum
Ian Martin designs a luxury graffiti and urban skills pavilion in Brighton
Dreaming of a life beyond carbon monoxide
Ian Martin calls in Tracey, Banksy, Damien and Grayson to imagine Preston’s Progressive Omnibus Terminus
Dysgustopia, Intersectional Banality, and other bundlings…
Ian Martin meets an old friend, architect Fred Trousers
The deserving and the undeserving moderately well-off
Ian Martin remodels The Entire Notion Of Social Housing
Theoretical barchitecture has its day
Ian Martin devises some inflatable rhetoric for the mayor of London
Ian Martin's speech at the launch of The Coalition Chronicles
I’m 58 years old and standing on a chair…I love a crowd when I don’t know many people. It’s more exciting.
Top ten...Kevin McCloud Moments
1. Sceptical frown in beanie. 2. Quizzical pout in hard hat. 3. Chuckling at timetable. 4. Conspiratorial whispering in deserted Italian kitchen. 5. Facial paralysis after saying 'gosh'. 6. Squinting at recalcitrant German roof. 7. Caressing seasoned oak beam with faraway gaze. 8. Shimmy of head as 'spontaneous thought' occurs. 9. Sighing, forgetting to breathe in again, passing out. 10. Asking 'but will it...work?' then getting hit in face ...
Top Ten...Youtube Clips
1. Igloos melting to a poignant soundtrack.2. Menacing Russian cartoon featuring dancing skyscrapers.3. Armed charrette at University of Pennsylvania.4. Wind turbines apparently chatting to each other in Swedish.5. Original World Trade Center under reconstruction in Second Life.6. Man being eaten by interactive carpet.7. Freak weather battering the Scottish coast, then deep-frying it.8. Homeless people dancing for soup in Poundbury.9. Frank Gehry ...
Top 10...pencils
1. The Graphito by Banksy & Banksy.2. Stubby Lines' Doodlebug Pro.3. Suzuki left-handed mechanical in B Minor.4. The Böring Seminar Bullet Point.5. Zaha Stiletto Space Probe 3000.6. Fair Trade natural unpainted cedar pencil with pretend carbon.7. The 2B Hamlet Soliloquy.8. The Blairwrite Memo with sneery, retractable point.9. Tarantino HB 5mm with smooth-barelled fixed eraser and ass-cap popper.10. Wooden stylus dipped in own blood.
Top 10...Architectural styles
1. Clinically Depressed Gothic.2. Defibrillated Constructivism.3. Neo-Semi-Classical.4. High Definition Plasmic Blobulism.5. Retrohyperventilated Freestyle.6. Arts and Crafts and Photoshop.7. Decarbonised Metabolism.8. Fucking Enormous.9. Evangelical Pointyism.10. Butch Colonial
Top 10...HATS FOR ARCHITECTS
1. Rain-harvesting sombrero.2. The BlackBeret Highbrowser.3. Visor in form of miniature concrete brise-soleil.4. False turban containing 50 Gigabytes of extra memory.5. The Shigeru Ban emergency cardboard cocktail hat.6. Photovoltaic yarmulke.7. Tricorne made from locally-sourced Observer Business & Media section.8. Adobe mudflat deerstalker, with mudflaps.9. The Frank Gehry Biretta 2.0 - 'Designed by computers, irritated with style'.10. ...
TOP 10...GREEN STATUS SYMBOLS
1. Garden wormery modelled on the Unité d'Habitation.2. Bamboo-framed 'intelligent' spectacles.3. Weekend minimalist cottage with climate-healing properties.4. Trevor Baylis wind-up slide projector.5. A smirking eco-blog called something like Environmentality, chronicling your whimsical journey through a dictionary of quotations.6. Hydrogen-powered bicycle with unisex handlebars.7. Misconceived concept drawings composter.8. A Brazilian foster-sapling ...
Top 10....NEOLOGISMS
1. CO3. A volatile gas produced by filtering 'carbon dioxide issues' through a windbag.2. Alchitect. A blurred visionary.3. Afforwardable. Type of low-cost housing that is conceived in situ, then permanently deferred.4. 'McCloud'. A forceful sigh, exhaled before conceding that something might just work.5. Platitudinum. Recycled material used as a covering for cultural landmarks.6. ...
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