Austin Williams

Austin Williams is associate professor in architecture at XJTLU, Suzhou, China; and director of the Future Cities Project in London. He is also the managing editor of www.MasterplanningtheFuture.org - the first independent, online architecture magazine in China.

Williams is the author of The Enemies of Progress: The dangers of sustainability and co-editor of The Future of Community and The Lure of the City: From Slums to Suburbs. He is currently writing China’s Urban Revolution: Understanding Chinese Eco-Cities (Bloomsbury) and 20 Chinese Architects (Thames & Hudson). His other books include The Enemies of Progress: The dangers of sustainability, The Future of Community and The Lure of the City: From Slums to Suburbs. He is the China correspondent for the Architectural Review and a founding member of New Narratives.

In London he retains his position as director at FCP Ltd, an independent film-making production unit specialising in architecture and the built environment. He also devised and chairs the Bookshop Barnies.


 Related Sessions

Monday, 4.15pm Design Museum
Design in denial?

Saturday, 1.30pm Upper Gulbenkian Gallery
Age of the metropolis

Sunday, 12.45pm Upper Gulbenkian Gallery
Designing behaviour

Sunday, 2.00pm Lecture Theatre 2
More than bricks and mortar?

 Publications

The Future of Community: Reports of a Death Greatly Exaggerated (ed, with Alastair Donald, Martin Earnshaw and Dave Clements) (Pluto Press, 2008)
Enemies of Progress: The Dangers of Sustainability  (Societas, 2008)

 Festival Buzz

Fora TV logo Particle Physics is Sexy

Particle Physics is Sexy [Opens in new window]

"The 2006 Battle of Ideas did what it said on the tin: prejudices were punctured, common wisdom was questioned and original thinking honoured. The saying was coined in Texas, but I suggest that the Battle of Ideas adopts it as the conference motto: ‘sacred cows make the best burgers."
George Brock, Saturday Editor, The Times