In an interview with Core77 Sam Jacob, formerly of FAT and now principal at Sam Jacob Studio, has "always pursued an idea of design practice as a combination of criticism, research and speculation that all feed directly into the design studio." This approach has allowed his ideas to "cross-fertilize, find connections and directions that make the practice stronger, more agile and able to respond intelligently to the problem at hand." Jacob, who is also a Visiting Professor at Yale and the University of Illinois at Chicago whilst simultaneously director of the Night School at London's Architectural Association, recently saw the end of FAT's final project: the curation of the British Pavilion (alongside Dutch architect and academic Wouter Vanstiphout). In the UK, former partner Charles Holland is bringing a collaborative project with artist Grayson Perry to completion in Essex.
Read more and see some of Jacob's drawings after the break.
When asked what is currently exciting him in design, Jacob suggests that "we're moving into a post-digital phase - or perhaps it should be christened the real digital age." For a while, he argues, "there's been a real obsession with digital tools in terms of what they can technically do. Now I think we're getting over that. Instead what we're beginning to see is a kind of convergence of intelligence in the design process—that cultural, physical, representational, sociological issues are becoming far more entwined in the way we can piece things together. Just as all kinds of information converges on our screens, I think it is beginning to in the things we design."
Read the interview in full here.
Watch ArchDaily's interview with Jacob at the 2012 Venice Biennale:
Sam Jacob & Wouter Vanstiphout on Curating "A Clockwork Jerusalem"
