SOUP TALK: JONATHAN ORLEK

Artist-Led Housing – Sustaining a Creative Rural Life?

Jonathan Orlek is Senior Lecturer in Architecture at Liverpool John Moores University. His edited book, Artist-Led Housing: Histories, Residencies, Spaces (2024) explores the role of artist-led organisations within the provision of housing. With a wide range of contributions—and expanding out of his embedded research and practice with East Street Arts—the book suggests future trajectories for living together creatively. Jonathan is also a director of Studio Polpo, a social enterprise architecture collective. With Studio Polpo he has undertaken several collaborative projects on the design of high streets, shared housing, and play spaces, including The High Street of Exchanges, an immersive installation for the British Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2021.