People Watching
The Architects Has Left The Building (TAHLTB) is a dual-screen video and audio installation I created with Sofia Smith and Simon James, originally for the RIBA, to be shown as their Summer exhibition in their London HQ in 2023. It has since been shown at The Farrell Centre in Newcastle (for their Winter exhibitons, 2023/24) and at ADFF:Stir in Mumbai (Jan 2025).
In the short video below, made for an article Dezeen did about the show, Sofia and I discuss the exhibition.
The finished film features thirteen different buildings from around the UK, but the focus is on the way people are using the buildings as opposed to the design of them. The buildings in this sense, become a stage set for the activity that plays out on and around them.
The genesis of TAHLTB came from this tweet I made in 2022. Pete Collard, curator at RIBA, saw the tweet and suggested it might make for an interesting exhibition.
From that initial tweet, visual artist Sofia Smith and I went back through my film archives, collating clips that we thought would work well together. Once we had a rough draft, sound designer and musician Simon James came on board to create a unique soundtrack for the 30 minute film.
Footage is shown across two screens, with different scenes overlapping with one another, using traditional editing techniques to create new connections between buildings often miles apart from each other in real life. Sofia led on the scene pairing. The sound piece Simon created ties everything together and combines real-life audio recorded on site with musical notes and specially created foley.
Below is a short extract from the film, to show the image pairing and a section of the sound design (volume up!)…
The whole piece is intended to be a meditative exercise in people watching, eschewing the formal methods of documenting architecture as edifice, and focusing on life and mess instead. Nothing in the film is posed or staged.
The architecture of the exhibitions, the stands, temporary walls and vitrines were built using Studio Bark’s U-Build modular blocks that had been re-used from RIBA’s past exhibition on re-use in architecture.
The install images here are by Agnese Sanvito (London RIBA show) and Kristen McCluskie (Newcastle Farrell Centre show).
After its four month run in London, TAHLTB moved to the Farrell Centre in Newcastle for their Winter season. Most recently, in January 2025 the show moved to Mumbai, India to form a central part of Stir:ADFF, the Architecture Design Film Festival hosted by Stir at the National Centre for the Performing Arts.
In each iteration, we have programmed an accompanying series of events and public engagement programmes. We’ve done talks, short film screenings, yoga sessions, workshops, live commentary and musical performances.
For TAHLTB at RIBA HQ in London, we organised an extensive public programme, featuring live talks from a range of practitioners, film screening nights and live music sets.
Live directors commentary, drawing workshops and yoga sessions when TAHLTB took up residency at the Farrell Centre in Newcastle. The images of the drawing session and yoga are by Kristen McCluskie
In Mumbai, TAHLTB formed a central part of the Stir Architecture Design Film Festival. We were kindly supported by RIBA and the British Council to attend the festival, do some panel discussions and run a video and sound workshop.
Emily Macaulay from StanleyJamesPress did the graphic identity of the exhibition when it appeared in London and Newcastle and also designed a beautiful catalogue for the show which featured an intro written by Edwin Heathcote and an essay from Nyima Murry and Teshome Douglas-Campbell from Patch Collective.
The images of the brochure are by Curtis James.
TAHLTB has received a number of wonderful reviews that we’re incredible grateful for. Including…
The first two real reviews, from Will Jennings on Recessed Space and Hana Loftus on Apollo.
Interviews on Dezeen, Stir and on the Monocle and A Is For Architecture Podcasts.
And a series of inclusions in ‘must-see’ lists from Wallpaper, LFA, The Evening Standard and Enki Magazine.
TAHLTB was created by Sofia Smith, Simon James and me. Stanley James Press designed the graphic identity and we are indebted to the following for their assistance and support…
Pete Collard, Rodrigo Orrantia and the exhibitions team at RIBA.
Owen Hopkins, Lorna Burn, Hannah Christy and the team at The Farrell Centre.
Samta Nadeem, Anmol Ahuja and the team from Stir for organising ADFF Mumbai, and RIBA and the British Council for supporting it.
Rob Fiehn and Bobby Jewell.
Nyima Murry, Edwin Heathcote, Teshome Douglas-Campbell and Laura Mark.
And Ellen Christina Hancock, Hana Alsaai, Nyima Murry, Nabiha Qadir, Daniel Commons and Sarah Daoudi for assisting me on the filming days.
We continue to look for new homes for TAHLTB, so if you have a gallery of film festival and you’d be interesting in hosting us, please get in touch!