ARCHITECTURE: How's it progressing?

• VID_0508: Train arriving at Annesley/Newstead Faculty Area, Dukeries Thinkbelt. Source: Edukit, 2022.

[edit] Discussion

[edit] Preamble

This Discussion page is conceived as a conditional space rather than a site of argument or conclusion. Its purpose is to set out provisional questions, criteria, and working assumptions against which the material assembled elsewhere in the thesis may be tested. The statements and questions recorded here are not intended to establish positions, but to define the conditions under which architecture might be examined as a participant in the commons. As such, the content of this page is expected to remain open, revisable, and occasionally contradictory, functioning as a scaffold for thought rather than a synthesis of results.

[edit] C1. Commons condition

• What specific conditions must be met for architecture to operate as part of the commons rather than as a privately commissioned artefact or service?

[edit] C2. Client condition

• Which architectural decisions, processes, or forms of agency become possible only when a client is absent from the commissioning structure?

[edit] C3. Time condition

• In what ways can time be explicitly modelled as a governing parameter in architectural thinking, rather than as a constraint, lifecycle, or post-design effect?

[edit] C4. Criteria condition

• How might doubt, delight, and change be defined and applied as explicit evaluative criteria within architectural practice?

[edit] C5. Directionality condition

• By what operational criteria can architecture be assessed as progressing toward, or stabilising away from, participation in the commons?

“This discussion feeds into an evolving catalogue of projects.”

[edit] Category:1966-2026

This discussion also assumes:—

... that the Potteries Thinkbelt is one of the most powerful question marks ever placed against architecture. Starting with its introduction in June 1966 in session 1 at the IDEA symposium, the Potteries Thinkbelt attracted an increasing amount of interest from architects perhaps reaching a climax in November 2003 with Supercrit #1:Cedric Price: Potteries Thinkbelt.

Thus the purpose of this particular discussion is to move the Potteries Thinkbelt out of the Cedric Price fonds for further ongoing research.

[edit] 2026 — Cedric Price fonds

• DR2004:0089 'Potteries Think Belt: A plan for the establishment of a major advanced educational industry in North Staffordshire'. Source: CCA / Facsimile created by the author. Read the actual size Facsimile of the report as a PDF.

[edit] Cedric Price fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture The "Projects" series contains a total of 254 projects. However, according to CCA:— "The series (...) contains self-financed research and client-less projects, which form a significant part of Cedric Price's practice." These projects are considered 'ideal' for research purposes. Catalogued self-financed research and client-less projects:— AP144.S2.D.183 IFPRI AP144.S2.D.170 Magnet AP144.S2.D.153 Ducklands (Duck land) AP144.S2.D.122 South Bank AP144.S2.D.93 DockAhoy/Trucksafe/AirPortable (Trucksafe/Air Portable/Dock Ahoy) AP144.S2.D.91 DOE Air Structures AP144.S2.D.79 Lightweight Enclosures Unit AP144.S2.D.71 Atom AP144.S2.D.67 Housing Research AP144.S2.D.63 Air Structures Report AP144.S2.D.9 Pop-up Parliament AP144.S2.D.56 Potteries Thinkbelt

[edit] 2003 — Supercrit #1

[edit] 1966 — IDEA symposium

[edit] INVENTORY

[edit] A. Sources (where things come from)

• Facsimile of the Potteries Thinkbelt article published in New Society, 2 June 1966. In the penultimate paragraph, Cedric Price wrote: "It follows from this attempt to unite rather than separate, student and community that student grants in the Thinkbelt should become, not loans, but straightforward salaries. If people are doing a job society wants them to do, they must be paid for it."

[edit] The Thinkbelt study published in New Society Cedric Price picked out a point made by Herbert Haslegrave about the need to use temporary structures:— "The priorities in education are staff, equipment and buildings—in that order." (Herbert Haslegrave, Letter to The Times, 1965) [3] According to Herbert Haslegrave:— "...the choice is between the solid and permanent or the demountable and temporary. If well designed, sited and landscaped, temporary buildings can look attractive and almost everything can be taught and studied in them." "...education is in such a state of flux—it always is—and it is so subject to the effects of changing educational, philosophical, sociological and political ideas, as well as to economic crises (that it was only sensible for the) buildings to be adaptable."

• Facsimile of the PTb article published in Architectural Design, October 1966.

[edit] The Thinkbelt study published in Architectural Design "Cedric Price's revolutionary proposal is that advanced education—and in particular advanced technical education—should become the new prime industry." (Robin Middleton, Introduction to the PTb, AD/10/66, p.483) [4] In Life-Conditioning, Cedric Price wrote:— "Education, if it is to become a continuous human-servicing service run by the community, must be provided with the same lack of peculiarity as the supply of drinking water or free teeth.” Here AD reframes education as industry as an architectural opportunity, whereas in New Society it is a social necessity.

Underlying the Potteries Thinkbelt's proposals were the following assertions:—

• "The housing of a major activity such as education should be viewed in architectural terms as a demand to increase the availability of such a service on a national scale, although its dispensation may through necessity require a limited locale.This would appear to be in opposition to current higher educational practice where the containers are dressed up to look like a medieval college with power points and are located in gentlemanly seclusion."
• "An activity that will increasingly occupy a large proportion of everyone's life should be in contact with areas near and far where the rest of life is spent."
• "Education, if it is to become a continuous human servicing service run by the community, must be provided with the same lack of peculiarity as the supply of drinking water or free teeth."
• "A major industry, as a source of employment, wealth and delight, must be capable of being implanted and eventually supplanted, with the minimum of physical (i.e. built) fuss in order to avoid, in the case of the Thinkbelt, the Potteries being branded for all time as the ideal spot for scientific education. (Think of the terrible fate that be fell that rather pleasant little East Anglian market town.)"
• "Through its form and operation it provides a test-bed condition for large-scale peculiar 'imbalanced' urbanistic development."
• (Life-conditioning, p.483).

The first paragraph of the PTb article was another assertion, namely:—

• "The prime weakness of the advanced educational system in Britain is a lack of awareness of both the correct scale and intensity at which such education should occur."
• (PTb, p.484).

The second paragraph began with further assertion, namely:—

• "Institutions today are too small and too exclusive."
• (ib.).

and then explained:—

• "Because advanced education is not regarded as a major national industry, it is in danger of failing to achieve both a social relevance and a capacity to initiate progress rather than an attempt to catch up with it".
• (ib.)

[edit] FINDING AIDS

• "The only purchaser of the full Potteries Thinkbelt documentation was the Ministry of Housing and Local Government who bought the report and copies of every single drawing including the photo-montages."
• (Royston Landau, 1984)

In 1995, however, the full documentation was also purchased from Cedric Price Architects by the CCA where it is archived. The Potteries Thinkbelt file includes:—

• 192 reprographic copies
• 190 drawings
• 3 panels
• 0.15 l.m. of textual records
• 0.04 l.m. of photographic materials
• (Potteries Thinkbelt, CCA, 1995-2006)

The CCA has a set of finding aids, one of which links to Cedric Price fonds. However, the link below provides access via hyperlinks to 52 digitized items archived in the Pottteries Thinkbelt file at the CCA.

• 'Finding Aid'

In addition, 7 drawings and 3 photo-montages can be found in a collection of CP's works at MOMA in Manhattan:—

• Learn More

[edit] ANALYSIS

[edit] C3. Time condition

• In what ways can time be explicitly modelled as a governing parameter in architectural thinking, rather than as a constraint, lifecycle, or post-design effect?

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--Archiblog 09:28, 01 Feb 2026 (BST)

[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings

Potteries Thinkbelt

Potteries Thinkbelt study

Potteries Thinkbelt study: Further ongoing research