I have a strong track record of research led teaching. I taught design studio and history at the Welsh School of Architecture Cardiff for 10 years before running the MArch at the University of Bath. Whilst at Bath I worked with students to develop anthropological film as a means of charting the relationship between people and site. The work, developed on a highly contested site in inner city Bristol culminated in an exhibition, Redcliffe Revisited at the Architecture Centre there. see website

At Sheffield I lead Humanities 1: Nature and Space in Western Architecture in Year 1. I am really interested in encouraging students to be critical of their education and aware of the hidden agendas in the things around them which is why I like to work with First years in Semester 1.

I have similar motivations in teaching Theory and Research in Year 5 as I want to help students develop a critical appreciation of issues of methodology. This was the focus Theory Forum ‘At Home’ which took place in November 2010.

I like developing research with MArch students and thinking of ways of facilitating other people’s research. I presented work with Louis Lane at the Agency AHRA conference in Sheffield in 2008 and work with Fearghal Murray at Field, the AHRA conference in Edinburgh in 2009. see youtube video

I also authored the on line training programme ‘Getting Published in the Arts’ for Epigeum, a spin out company from Imperial college. see website

One of the most enjoyable teaching roles in the school is supervising the undergraduate Special Study and the MArch Dissertation. I have a growing number of students who choose to explore issues of taste, make critiques of architectural education and operate on the interface between architecture and the social sciences.

I take the employment prospects of students very seriously. It was for this reason that I initiated the RIBA Student Destinations Survey, started in 2011 in which we will be charting the career paths of architectural graduates across seven diverse UK architecture schools over a ten year period. Only 30% of architecture students end up working in architecture. We need to tailor architectural education to take account of this often ignored fact.

www.architecture.com/.../RIBAStudentDestinationsSurvey.aspx

Head of School (since November 2010)

Member of Faculty Executive Board, Faculty of Social Sciences

Much of my attention has been focused on revising the history of Le Corbusier, my aim being to reveal neglected aspects of his work that have contemporary relevance. My PhD was on Le Corbusier’s unbuilt scheme for a Basilica at La Sainte Baume in the South of France, my work adding impetus to the development of a Trouin/ Le Corbusier centre there. My first book written with Sarah Menin, Nature and Space: Aalto and Le Corbusier (2000), used psychoanalytical methodologies to explore the two architects’ obsession with nature. Le Corbusier Architect and Feminist (2004) explored his interest in gender equality. Le Corbusier in Detail (2007) reasserted the poetic possibilities of construction. Le Corbusier and the Architectural Promenade (2010), utilizing film theory and the laws of rhetoric focused on the experience of moving through buildings. I am currently writing Ineffable Space: Le Corbusier and the Church with Inge Linder-Gaillard (Birkhauser, 2012). (see article in BD by Cany Ash on Unite d'habitation in Marseille, France by Le Corbusier)

Why people in the UK seem to value architecture so little is at the heart of my agenda. This is why I have an ongoing project on house extensions and why people so rarely employ architects to do them. I am also very interested in how research can contribute to the quality of Volume House Building and am working with Taylor Wimpey on a Knowledge Exchange Project in this area. I am busy collecting material for my next book on the value of architecture. See At Home research group

I am a member of the RIBA Research and Innovation Group. My areas of responsibility are Housing, Performance and Value. I am also the member of SCHOSA council responsible for research. I see these roles are joined, my aim being to keep schools across the UK informed of the activities of the RIG to our mutual benefit. As well as the topics outlined above I have a particular interest in promoting practice based research. It seems to me vital that academia and practice work together to evidence the importance of architecture.

2010 – Faculty of Social Sciences HEIF 4 funding for cpd, £30,000.
2010 – Faculty of Social Sciences Research funding for ‘At Home’ conference - £1500
2010 – British Academy, £5,000 for copyright fees
2007 – British Academy, £4,958 for copyright fees
2005 – Leverhulme Trust, £21,094, research fellowship
2005 – Cardiff University, £4,500 for research into the use of Learning Journals
2003 - AHRB Grant, £5,000 for research costs for Le Corbusier in Detail
2003 – British Academy Grant £4,795 for copyright fees
2003 - British Academy Grant, £1,000 for travel
2002 – British Academy Grant with Sarah Menin, £3,500 for copyright fees
1999 – British Academy Research Grant, £2,215 for copyright fees
1999 – Dorothy Stroud Bursary, Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain, £500 for copyright fees
1997 – RIBA Research Trust Award, £3,000 for travel

Michael Coates – 2011 - A History of Activist Architecture 1970 to present

Shima Rezaei Rashnoodi – 2011 - Iranian Diaspora and the making of Home

Maria Van Elk – 2011 – Architectural Practice and Localism: Action Research into the making of Local Development Plan in Manchester

Sara Howard, ‘Elizabeth Whitworth Scott Architect’, MPhil University of Bath 2008.

With Peter Blundell Jones I am supervising Diego Gonzalez Carrasco whose research is on the subject of the Aymara home.

RIBA Research and Innovation Group Member with responsibility for Housing, Performance and Value 2011

SCHOSA Council representative for Research since 2009.

Invited to speak at Barbican, London on Le Corbusier and Women in 2009

Academic Lead for RIBA Student Destinations Survey 2011

RIBA Research Trust Award Judge since 2011.

Design Adviser Sheffield Children’s Hospital Extension Project 2011

Assessor for British Federation of Women Graduates Scholarship Programme 2011

Sheffield Design Award Judge 2010.

Judge for the RIBA President’s Medals Dissertation Prize in 2003

My book Le Corbusier in Detail was nominated for the RIBA International Book of the Year award 2008.

I was appointed a member of the AHRC Peer Review Panel in 2009.

I am a regular reviewer for the Times Higher Education Supplement.

I have acted as external examiner and on validation and promotion panels at the AA, AHO Oslo, University of Brighton, University of Cyprus, KTH Stockholm, Open University, University of Nottingham, Newcastle University, Queens University Belfast, South Bank University, University of Westminster. I have also acted as research advisor to several schools.