Wohngespräch: Jack Self

Michael Obrist [feld72] in conversation with Jack Self [REAL foundation] about “How to Read a Plan”

How to Read a Plan
A short lecture beginning at the scale of the urban home (the apartment) and moving to the scale of the city. It aims to reveal and critique domestic power relations, functionalism, zoning, and the agency of the architect today.

Jack Self
Jack Self is an architect based in London. He is Director of REAL, Editor-in-Chief of Real Review and Cofounder of REAL homes. Jack’s work is dedicated to promoting democracy, inclusivity and equalities of many kinds. Over the last decade, Jack has built expertise in: domestic design and housing; the history of communitarian life; new environmental standards and the circular economy; and alternative models of finance and ownership.

In 2016, Jack curated the British Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale with the show Home Economics.He was Unit Master of Diploma Six at the Architectural Association from 2018–2020, with Guillermo Lopez and Nana Biamah-Ofosu. Jack’s other work includes curation, exhibition design, spatial strategy, brand consultancy, communications, publishing, editing, writing and creative direction. Jack’s first book Real Estates: Life Without Debt (2014) is now in its third printing. His other books include Home Economics: New Models of Domestic Life (2016), Mies in London (2018), Symbolic Exchange (2017) and Kommunen in der Neuen Welt: Utopian Communes in America 1740-1972 (2021).