Outline Biography

Registered Architect since 1986.  Professional practice work has won many awards and has been exhibited and published internationally. Academic output primarily focuses on research-led design and design-led research: exhibited and published nationally and internationally.  Academic papers have been published in China, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Israel, Italy, Spain, Turkey, UK, and USA.  My core research interests are architectural-political-philosophical overlaps on issues of architectural design, representation and production.  I was Visiting Professor for Architecture and Urban Planning at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Sassari, Sardinia, 2011-12.  I was a board member of Architecture + Design Scotland between 2005-2009.  I am a member of the Architectural Humanities Research Association.

Research-led Teaching Responsibilities:

Programme Director: PhD Architecture By Design; Master of Architecture; M Sc Architectural and Urban Design; M Sc Reflective Design Practices; Architecture and Urban Design PG Summer School.  I currently supervise 9 PhD students all developing theses on various international cities.

Current RESEARCH

Current research concerns Ecosophy, in particular how this impacts theories and practice of ‘Community.’

The following concepts of community intersect through various research outputs: Borderland Community (Habermas); Extraterritorial Community (Levinas); Unavowable Community (Blanchot); Narratological Community (Ricoeur); Open Community (Agamben); Curating [Heterological] Community (Ranciere); and Ecosophic Community (Bateson and Guattari).  As an architect and urban designer, I place less attention on the appropriateness of forms for community and more on developing architectural and urban processes for “becoming community.”  The impetus of “becoming community” steers my design-led research.