POST PRESS, an eight-week public programme in collaboration with the Architecture Foundation
On June 16th the Architecture Foundation published New Architects 5, the latest edition in its landmark series of guides to the UK’s best emerging practices. Throughout the summer, we are collaborating with them to present POST PRESS, a temporary event space programmed by the 93 practices featured in the book.
Housed at the Zaha Hadid Foundation’s premises at 10 Bowling Green Lane in Clerkenwell, POST PRESS plays host to more than 30 events focused on subjects ranging from football to conservation, club culture to clay. The space is also open as a library bookshop where visitors can browse New Architects 5 alongside a selection of titles donated by the featured practices.
Read on to discover what’s coming up and register to attend:
Wednesday July 22nd – Between Rock and a Hard Place
Between Rock and a Hard Place is an event presented by Other People’s Dreams that explores how the people, places and communities that shape regional spatial practice are documented, represented and shared through alternative forms of publishing and cultural production. Bringing together zine-making, photography, writing, conversation and exhibition, the event examines the role that independent media and grassroots cultural activity play in shaping contemporary architectural and spatial discourse beyond the UK’s major urban centres. Part zine fair, part exhibition, part reading and part public conversation, the event brings together contributors whose work is rooted in the North West and committed to amplifying overlooked stories, voices and places. Featuring contributions from Stat Magazine, Ash Hardman, SHOP Preston, and Other People’s Dreams, the event will showcase a diverse range of printed matter, photographic work, texts and research that engage directly with the realities of regional life and practice. The event seeks to challenge dominant narratives that position cultural innovation as something concentrated elsewhere and asks what conditions are needed for a progressive and contemporary culture of spatial production to emerge outside the gravitational pull of larger cities. Instead, it highlights regional towns and communities as vital sites of inquiry, experimentation and impact for emerging practitioners.
Join the Scottish architects for a good old Friday night ceilidh! Tonight we are bringing a bit of Scotland to London – or perhaps taking London on a brief and mostly unsanctioned trip to Scotland. Whatever it is, we guarantee a good time! The evening will be introduced by fellow Scot Roz Barr before descending into reels, readings and revelry. Absolutely zero ceilidh experience is required – enthusiasm is far more useful than competence, and an experienced caller will be on hand to guide us through the dances. Whether you’re a seasoned Gay Gordon or someone who assumes a Dashing White Sergeant is the sort of person who comments extensively on planning applications, you’ll fit right in. And if dancing isn’t your thing, come anyway – there’ll be a cold, crisp Tennents waiting for your arrival and a massive beer garden to soak in the atmosphere.
Saturday July 25th – Majlis Conversations
In arabic, the majlis is a semi-public space found within homes and neighbourhoods: a room, courtyard or threshold where conversation unfolds, hospitality is offered, and ideas are exchanged. We will shape the space as a majlis, inviting artists, designers and writers to present an object, room, building or landscape that speaks to ideas of home, belonging and cross-cultural hybridity. Through a series of informal conversations, each contribution becomes a point of departure for reflecting on the interconnectedness of our ways of living. Hosted by Msoma, with Lubna Chowdhary, Krish Nathaniel, Farhad Malik (Wadhal) and Adam Nathaniel-Furman. Tea will be served. All are welcome.
Daily, Tuesday July 27th – Thursday July 30th from 2:00pm: Touch Earth & Phantom Tea Room
Touch Earth: THING has invited 30 guests to donate a ceramic object of their choosing which will form part of an exhibition called Touch Earth. The participants are: Alberte Lauriedsen, Alex Arestis, Alex Lynes, Arran Gregory, Caz Hildebrand, Claire Baily, Clare Twomey, Dan Pope, David Watson, Ellis Woodman, Emaad Damda, Farrokh Aman, Geoff Marsh, Jonah Luswata, Juliet Haysom, Lewis Jones, Louise Trodden, Lucas Facer, Patrick Fryer, Margit Kraft, Maria Gasparian, Maria Lisogorskaya, Mark Freeman, Matthew Hodges, Neal Shasore, Patrick Fryer, Rich Miller, Sahra Hersi, Sanjukta Jitendhar, Sarah Hardacre, Seb Maher, Sian Ricketts, Thomas Randall-Page, Toby Pear, Victoria Wagner.
Phantom Tea Room: Of Architecture introduces a printed curtain stretched across the courtyard reframing the space into a temporary tea room — architecture achieved through image and perception, rather than physical construction. Led by Yanwu, Chinese architect-turned-tea-host, with ceramic studios Muzuri Ware and Tokocha Studio, hand-build a tea cup from wild UK clay, then taste one tea through different vessels, discovering how material quietly reshapes the act of drinking. Daily open Gongfu tea sessions invite lingering, questioning and unscripted exchange between architecture and craft.
Tuesday July 28th, 7.00pm-9.00pm (in the studio) – A Brick Bond
Why does fired clay endure as such a pertinent and provocative texture across London? Four practitioners explore which qualities of brickwork translate into our sustainable future, and a fifth guest will help challenge whether a brick is more than what it’s made of.
Speakers: Prisca Thielman, Macreanor Lavington; Marcus Paine, Hutton Stone; Kirsten Gabriels Webb, Sergison Bates; Thomas Windley, Ivo Carew Architects. Chair: Ivo Carew, Ivo Carew Architects
Tuesday July 28th, 7.00pm-9.00pm (in the courtyard)- Mis-Guided Tea Tasting
There is no perfect vessel for tea. This tasting explores how different clays and ceramic surfaces influence our perception of flavour, aroma and texture. Using the same tea served through vessels by Muzuri Ware and Tokocha Studio, participants will experience how material quietly reshapes the act of drinking. Guided by Yanwu, the session invites discussion rather than instruction, encouraging participants to compare, question and discover how taste is formed not only by the tea itself, but by the objects through which it is experienced.
Before making, participants are invited to share tea brewed from vessels made by ceramic artist Kyri Mouzouris (Muzuri Ware), whose work accompanies Yanwu’s first tea collection. Kyri harvests wild clay from landscapes across the UK, combining traditions of ceramics with backgrounds in architecture, carpentry and blacksmithing. His tableware explores how landscape can be translated into objects for everyday use. Beginning with tea and a conversation about clay, material and place,participants will then hand-build their own small tea cup using locally sourced clay, considering how vessels carry memory, texture and landscape through the act of making.
Thursday July 30th 2.00-6.00pm – Sketching in Clay: Hand-coiling with Natcha Kucita, Studio Rhei
A sketch is not a plan — it’s a way of thinking with the hand. Natcha Kucita leads a free-flowing hand-coiling session, treating clay the way an architect treats a sketchbook: a space for testing and revising form through repetition rather than instruction. Drop in for half and hour or the full afternoon — there’s no fixed outcome, just clay, hands, and time.
Thursday July 30th 7.00-9.00pm – Clay 1A
Thomas Randall-Page, Lucas Facer and Patrick Fryer,the founders of THING, and their client Crispin Kelly discuss the conception and design of Clay 1A, a new museum devoted to the role of the ceramic object in domestic life which they are creating in a nineteenth-century former industrial building on the waterfront in Ipswich.
New events will be revealed weekly—stay tuned here or join our mailing list for updates!