I ran a casting course for first and second year undergraduate architecture students within Communication and Media Studies at the Architectural Association in 2018-19 and 2019-20.

The course set out to explore the physical transformations of certain materials over time- particularly plaster and concrete- and the reciprocal relationship between moulds and casts. We had minutes to work with alginate and plaster; observed (and interrupted) the setting of concrete the course of a day; and considered how strength increases over weeks and months. Taking cues from geology as well as from the histories of art and architecture, we worked with pigments, aggregates and additives to create tests. Finally we visited my Brother’s masonry works in Dorset, Haysom Purbeck Stone, which provided the students with an introduction to contemporary commercial masonry workshop and machinery processes, and the opportunity to cut and polish their casts. Using this broad range of additive and reductive processes we explored the translation from void into form.