Post Works: drawn towards performance

Appleton's father is a sound artist and Butcher's mother is a choreographer, so there was certainly a genetic predisposition for both of them to pursue a less conventional practice. They resist the idea that they were drawn towards performance because of a lack of other formal architectural options. "There was a desire to work in art practice. We made informed decisions." Says Butcher. "We enjoy thinking about collaboration with other disciplines. Equally there was never a sense of a feeling of a bleeding out from one discipline into another. It's genuinely happens because the boundaries are less clear."

Their collaboration with Rosemary Butcher continued into a further performance piece which solidified some for the more experimental 2D work into 3D installation. Then again this year in a collaboration between Butcher, Edward Burdis Pablo Bronstein to recreate the American performance artist Allan Kaprow's 18 Happenings in 6 Parts in the Royal Festival Hall.

The economics of such ventures is precarious. They explain that the model they operate runs on grants and is supplemented by their work in universities. The synergy between education and practice has always been close, but for architects in the recession it is intense. Is academia also a place for Post Works to explore their ideas, ones that would never gain traction outside of the classroom? For Butcher the answer is no. "We feel quite strongly that we don't get students to answer our ideas. It doesn't benefit them and we don't always want them. Teaching is one of the few places for research in architecture, it's a shame when that becomes the method of output as well."

The rapid nature of the work is more appealing than the slog of a four-year building wait, the trials and tribulation of building. And, they admit while blushing, they are not yet fully qualified as architects. "It's also about timeframe." Says Appleton, describing the process of working on set-design. "We have a long research period, there's a production period where we intensely work with the raw process of building. There's the budget and there's the event. It's very quick. We enjoy the process that evaluates it so it's irrelevant whether it lives on. You end up 60 paces ahead of where you were before then you can carry on and bring it with you."

Although they are hesitant about moving towards a more traditional architecture, the nearest they have come to so far is a temporary radio station Writtle Calling, which will be built in a field this spring in Essex. It still maintains their progression towards an "event-based" architecture.

The design of the station, although only on paper suggests a more conventional form of design than was seen in their performance pieces and backdrops. The lines that they articulated and shapes and compositions are visible in 2D, and it will be very interesting to see the transition from spectacle and composition to negotiations of spaces and functions. The radio station is an experiment, perhaps a nerve-wracking one, but they both brighten up when we talk about their forthcoming book project. In collaboration again with Bronstein, they are producing a critical study on "Neo Georgian" architecture in London. The type of non-style seemingly selected aimlessly from catalogues of building typologies and whose forms the banal backdrop to 1980s middle-class housing estates or public buildings. "It's so innocuous that it's become part of our psyche – it's acceptable because it is so prevalent. From vacuum-formed pediments to fibre-glassed moulded lintels. It's crazy but it's been fascinating to document it." The book will be published this year by Koening.

We leave it there and reflect a little on the collaborations and level of exposure that this very young practice has achieved in a short time. Their ability to negotiate and articulate performance and architecture, while still retaining their identity will be the key to their future projects, whether that is to be exhibited in a gallery, or the gallery itself. Beatrice Galilee