Dr Krzysztof Nawratek
PhD, FHEA
School of Architecture and Landscape
Senior Lecturer in Humanities and Architecture
Full contact details
School of Architecture and Landscape
Arts Tower
Western Bank
Sheffield
S10 2TN
- Profile
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I am a Senior Lecturer in Humanities and Architecture at the University of Sheffield School of Architecture and Landscape. With a background in architecture and urban planning, I work between architecture, urbanism and religious studies.
My work is rooted in the notion of radical inclusivity. I understand this term both as an ethical commitment and as a method, applying a non-dialectical mode of thinking. Referring to Nelson Goodman’s work, I often summarise my research as follows: I study how multiple world-versions exist, touch and change each other without ever becoming One.
I approach the humanities from an infrastructural, almost engineering point of view - I treat theories and concepts as tools and conduits that can be moved across world-versions. By creatively repurposing ideas, I seek to reveal aspects of urban and religious life that remain hidden when concepts stay within their “proper” context. This creative misappropriation is always framed by the ethic of radical inclusivity: the aim is to open world-versions to one another without erasing their differences.
In addition to my academic research, I bring over a decade of experience in architectural and urban planning/design practices across Poland, Latvia, and Ireland. This professional background informs my teaching and research, helping me integrate theoretical insights with practical, real-world challenges.
Leadership has also played an important role in my career. I was M.Arch (RIBA PArt 2) Leader at the University of Plymouth; In Sheffield I led the Year 1 of the UG program, I was the MA in Architecture Design program leader; I also worked as PGT Director in the School of Architecture. From 2022 to 2024, I served as the Departmental Director of Research and Innovation at the School of Architecture.
I am Series Editor of Anthem Studies on Religion, Space and Design
- Qualifications
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MSc in Architecture and Urban Planning, PhD in Architecture and Urban Planning, PgCert in HE
- Research interests
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My current research is organised around two book projects that approach religious formations often associated with conservative politics to ask, maybe counterintuitively, what resources they might hold for thinking about inclusive space and collective life.
The first, under contract with Rutgers University Press, examines Pentecostal spaces in Brazil as at the same time spaces of exclusion and inclusion. The question driving the work is whether the same structures that enable exclusionary politics might also contain other possibilities.
The second project extends my ongoing collaboration with the Sheffield Diocese of the Church of England. Here I'm interested in how the parish system, a territorial, hierarchical structure inherited from the medieval period, functions as civic infrastructure capable of sustaining radical openness. The Church's very rootedness in place and tradition, I argue, enables forms of inclusion that more mobile or ideologically "progressive" institutions struggle to achieve.
Both projects continue work begun in my book Total Urban Mobilisation. Ernst Jünger and the Post-Capitalist City (2019), and are shaped by a theoretical commitment I think of as conserving possibility: an orientation that resists foreclosing futures, whether through revolutionary rupture or reactionary enclosure. Drawing on Origen's apokatastasis and non-dialectical modes of thinking, I'm interested in how keeping structures (infrastructural, institutional, social, religious) alive and open, rather than dismantling or rejecting them, might help to protect the possibility of everything and make the world welcoming to everybody.
- Publications
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Books
- Epistemic Ambivalence: Pentecostalism and Candomblé in a Brazilian City. Taylor & Francis.
- Kuala Lumpur : community, infrastructure and urban inclusivity. Routledge. View this article in WRRO
- Holes in the Whole Introduction to the Urban Revolutions. Washington: Zero Books.
- City as a Political Idea. Citizenship, Sovereignty and Politics. University of Plymouth Press.
- Ideologie W Przestrzeni. Próby Demistyfikacji. Krakow: Universitas.
Edited books
- Radical inclusivity. Architecture and urbanism. Barcelona: dpr-Barcelona. View this article in WRRO
Journal articles
- Challenges in managing public spaces in work unit communities in China: A case study of Xiangshao village. Journal of Urban Management. View this article in WRRO
- Spatial reflections on Muslimsʼ segregation in Britain. Religions, 14(3). View this article in WRRO
- The production of knowledge through religious and social media infrastructure : world making practices among Brazilian Pentecostals. Popular Communication, 20(3), 208-221.
- Beyond community: inclusivity through spatial interventions. Writingplace, 6, 136-147. View this article in WRRO
- Rudolf Otto’s ‘The Absolute Other’ and a radical postsecular urban contextualization. Planning Theory, 20(1), 28-43. View this article in WRRO
- De-colonizing public spaces in Malaysia: dating in Kuala Lumpur. cultural geographies, 27(4), 615-629. View this article in WRRO
- Performative interventions to re-claim, re-define and produce public space in different cultural and political contexts. Archnet-IJAR: International Journal of Architectural Research, 31(3), 718-735. View this article in WRRO
- How brave can we be? The city as a political experiment. Journal of Architecture and Urbanism, 38(1), 1-2.
- An urban partisan: Carl Schmitt’s and Jacob Taubes’ guide for urban revolution. Journal of Architecture and Urbanism, 38(1), 3-10. View this article in WRRO
- New progressive architecture: Designing for cities in end times. Journal of European Popular Culture, 3(1), 77-88.
- Urban Landscape and the Postsocialist City. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, 14(3).
- The internet: a potential factor in socio-spatial disintegration of Riga?. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Urban Design and Planning, 164(4), 233-239.
- Bolsonarism, “Immanentist Pentecostalism,” and the Future of Religion and Politics in Brazil. Implicit Religion.
- Uniwersytet jako przyłącze: lokalna infrastruktura społecznej zmiany. Górnośląskie Studia Socjologiczne. Seria Nowa, 7, 201-210.
Book chapters
- Infrastructural spaces. The (anti)public space manifesto In Fariman MA, Lee C, Hakiminejad A & Mehan A (Ed.), City, Public Space, and Body: The Embodied Experience of Urban Life Routledge View this article in WRRO
- Infrastructural Spaces, City, Public Space, and Body (pp. 11-23). Routledge
- Flattening power structure (we have been being preached to), Epistemic Ambivalence (pp. 15-24). Routledge
- Profane space does not exist, Epistemic Ambivalence (pp. 38-49). Routledge
- Religious infrastructure, Epistemic Ambivalence (pp. 50-67). Routledge
- Beyond space (lessons from the pandemic), Epistemic Ambivalence (pp. 88-97). Routledge
- Conclusions, Epistemic Ambivalence (pp. 98-104). Routledge
- Temple, street, home, and nature, Epistemic Ambivalence (pp. 68-79). Routledge
- Interlude, Epistemic Ambivalence (pp. 80-87). Routledge
- Conquer or hide, Epistemic Ambivalence (pp. 25-37). Routledge
- Introduction, Epistemic Ambivalence (pp. 1-14). Routledge
- Urban and social infrastructure, KUALA LUMPUR: COMMUNITY, INFRASTRUCTURE AND URBAN INCLUSIVITY (pp. 81-107).
- Towards radical inclusivity - community, Ummah and beyond, KUALA LUMPUR: COMMUNITY, INFRASTRUCTURE AND URBAN INCLUSIVITY (pp. 1-17).
- The spatial dynamics of Kuala Lumpur, KUALA LUMPUR: COMMUNITY, INFRASTRUCTURE AND URBAN INCLUSIVITY (pp. 53-80).
- Spatial practices - dividing and connecting, KUALA LUMPUR: COMMUNITY, INFRASTRUCTURE AND URBAN INCLUSIVITY (pp. 108-116).
- National unity and urban segregation, KUALA LUMPUR: COMMUNITY, INFRASTRUCTURE AND URBAN INCLUSIVITY (pp. 32-52).
- Kuala Lumpur Community, Infrastructure and Urban Inclusivity Preface, KUALA LUMPUR: COMMUNITY, INFRASTRUCTURE AND URBAN INCLUSIVITY (pp. VIII-XIII).
- Kuala Lumpur Community, Infrastructure and Urban Inclusivity Concluding notes, KUALA LUMPUR: COMMUNITY, INFRASTRUCTURE AND URBAN INCLUSIVITY (pp. 117-119).
- From strategy to tactic, KUALA LUMPUR: COMMUNITY, INFRASTRUCTURE AND URBAN INCLUSIVITY (pp. 18-31).
- Architecture of radicalized postsecularism, The Routledge Handbook of Postsecularity (pp. 315-324). Routledge
- Introduction, Urban Re-Industrialization (pp. 15-19). punctum books
- ‘Der Arbeiter’ (Re-)Industrialization as Universalism? In Nawratek KJ (Ed.), Urban Re-Industrialization (pp. 61-68). Punctum Books View this article in WRRO
- ‘Der Arbeiter’, Urban Re-Industrialization (pp. 61-68). punctum books
- University as a terminal: socio-material infrastructure for post-neoliberal society In Izak M, Kostera M & Zawadzki M (Ed.), The Future of University Education (pp. 145-156). London: Palgrave Macmillan. View this article in WRRO
- 'Radically inclusive architecture and urbanism' and 'On the frustrating impossibility of inclusive architecture' In Nawratek KJ (Ed.), Radical Inclusivity. Architecture and Urbanism (pp. 8-23). DPR-Barcelona View this article in WRRO
- Contemporary Capitalism and a Post-socialist city: the Bankruptcy of Neo-liberal Riga In Redbergs O (Ed.), Conditions for Contemporary Culture (pp. 129-136). Riga: Megaphone Publishers.
- Territory, Autonomy and Provisional Revolution: How to Survive in 21st Century In Redbergs O (Ed.), Conditions for Contemporary Culture (pp. 91-95). Riga: Megaphone Publishers.
- Producing citizens: from socialist to post-socialist urban opression In Miles M & Savage J (Ed.), Nutopia A Critical View of Future Cities (pp. 36-35). University of Plymouth Press
- Rejecting the Communicative Paradigm of Public Space In Bader M, Baurhenn O, Szreder K, Voinea R & Koch K (Ed.), The KNOT. An Experiment on Collaborative Art in Public Urban Space (pp. 151-156). Berlin: Jovis.
Conference proceedings
- Mode 2 science: Exploring a common ground of knowledge production in the fields of housing and sustainability. RE-DWELL Conference “Housing co-creation for tomorrow’s cities”, Vol. 1(1) (pp 9-14). France, 8 December 2022 - 9 December 2022.
- Epistemic Ambivalence: Pentecostalism and Candomblé in a Brazilian City. Taylor & Francis.
- Research group
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JUST/ Design, Engagement and Practice
Fellow at the Institute for Global Sustainable Development
Member of Muses Mind Machine Research Centre
Associate Fellow at Urban Institute
Member of the Steering Group of Design Lab
- Grants
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- Future Faith: Religions, Spaces and Innovations (Sir Halley Stewart Trust, UK, 2024 - 2026)
- INNATURE: Enhancing Biodiversity and Social Inclusion by Transforming Europe’s Living Environments (Horizon Europe, 2025 - 2029)
Finished funded projects:
- MSCA-ITN Re-Dwell: Delivering Affordable and Sustainable Housing in Europe (2020 - 24).
- Teaching interests
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My teaching grows out of my research. I aim to create a safe space for students to engage critically with the questions I find most pressing: how can people live together while they do not share common values and beliefs? What does it mean to design inclusively without flattening differences? I help students think across disciplines and traditions, to use ideas, theories and concepts as tools to engage with concrete problems.
- Teaching activities
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- Power, Space, Society: ARC6742
- Special Studies: ARC322
- PhD supervisions
- Professional activities and memberships
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I am Fellow of The Higher Education Academy (HEA) and member of The British Association for the Study of Religions (BASR).