This project is a historical and critical study of The Language of Postmodern Architecture, arguably one of the most important books of late twentieth-century architecture. By studying the content of the book but also its premises, multiple iterations and translations as well as its materiality and reception in a British and International context,  Léa-Catherine aims to show how the book was, in multiple ways, embedded in the particular context of the late 1970s.

Methodologically, the project owes to micro-history: focusing on a small unit of research – a book – it aspires to answer larger questions related to the status of architecture culture in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The unique design of the National Graphene Institute in 91Ö±²¥, UK sheds light on the new generation of 21st-century science buildings.

The release addresses questions such as: How does the architecture of scientific building matter for science? and How does the design of spaces such as labs, workshops and more affect how scientists think, experiment and collaborate?

Over the past three decades, the research on science buildings has focused either purely on the technical side of lab design or on the human interface and communication aspects. Weaving together two tales of the National Graphene Institute, Novoselov and Yaneva combine an analysis of its distinctive design features and complex technical infrastructure with an ethnographic observation of the practices of scientists, facility managers, technicians, administrators and house service staff. 

is a Langworthy Professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy, the Royal Society Research Professor at the University of Manchester and the Tan Chin Tuan Centennial Professor at the National University of Singapore. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 (together with Andre Geim) for their pioneering work on graphene. He was the leading scientist behind the design and development of the National Graphene Institute, working closely with the architects.

 is Professor of Architectural Theory at the University of Manchester and Lise Meitner Visiting Chair at the University of Lund. She is the author of: The Making of a Building (2009), Made by the OMA: An Ethnography of Design (2009), Mapping Controversies in Architecture (2012) Five Ways to Make Architecture Political. An Introduction to the Politics of Design Practice (2017), Crafting History: Archiving and the Quest for Architectural Legacy (2020). She is the recipient of the Royal Institute of British Architects President's award for outstanding university research (2010).

Read the for further details.

by Kostya S. Novoselov and Albena Yaneva is published by World Scientific Publishing, Singapore - New Jersey - London (2020). 

In 2018 the Canadian Centre for Architecture launched a collaborative and multidisciplinary research project on architecture’s complex developments in sub-Saharan African countries after independence.

The architecture practice and discipline, along with academic institutions, archives, libraries, and museums, have been integral to what Valentin-Yves Mudimbe calls “the invention of Africa” by the West.

This project, therefore, asks, first, how to understand architecture’s historical role in decolonization, neocolonialism, globalization, and their manifestations across the continent, at local and regional scales; and, second, how this understanding can challenge established methods and disciplinary conventions of architectural and urban studies.

“Centring Africa: Postcolonial Perspectives on Architecture” seeks to contextualize such seemingly paradoxical relations as those among building and unbuilding, formal and informal, appropriated and expropriated, and modern and traditional.

The project aims to question, and eventually shift, perspectives shaped by North/South knowledge divides.

This research initiative is catalyzed in part by the recent arrival at the CCA of three important archival collections related to architecture, urbanism, and territoriality in Africa: those of Dutch planner Coen Beeker, German architect Georg Lippsmeier, and Kiran Mukerji, an employee of Lippsmeier.

Together, these archives form a unique research library of nearly three thousand titles, which will serve as an investigative starting point for the individual and collective projects undertaken in the framework of the CCA Multidisciplinary Research Program.

Generally, the CCA considers archival research essential to building new forms of evidence, understanding the archive broadly, even as one which still needs to be constructed.

Specifically, this project reconsiders the archive in order to challenge the reliance on Western sources by looking beyond institutional archives to others constructed around single buildings, international organizations, urban spaces, new policies, statistics, laws, photography, financial programs, and philosophical, intellectual, or cultural propositions.

The project uses GIS mapping alongside the University of Manchester’s Map Collections to examine 91Ö±²¥’s historic city centre from 1730 to the present day.

Throughout history, the human body has influenced systems of belief, which have in turn found numerous means of cultural expression, including through architecture.

The hypotheses for this project is that these architecture-body interconnections have affected the architecture and urban fabric of Manchester; that examples can be identified using historical maps of the city and other information (including images and newspapers, supported by secondary sources); and that changes in attitudes towards the human body can be traced and visualized across time using Digital Humanities techniques.

There are two, interconnected objectives for this project, one academic and one technical.

These relate to two broad research questions: how has the (human) body has been controlled and ‘displayed’ by and in the city, its growth and fabric? How can Digital Humanities techniques, in turn, display these issues as they have developed over time, and open the topic up to new insights and analysis?

The project runs from 2019 to 2022.

TOSSIB (Towards Sustainable Sanitation in India and Brazil) studies sustainability outcomes across different sanitation systems, geographical contexts (India, Brazil) and temporal scales using multiple analytical approaches and state-of-the-art modelling.

Scenario building will support decision-makers in uncovering plausible futures.

The project will enhance our understanding of complex human-environment interactions and sustainability outcomes. It hopes to enable change in addressing multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):

• reducing inequalities in promoting sustainable sanitation for low-income areas (SDG10, SDG12);
• supporting the development of sanitation infrastructures that are culturally appropriate, more inclusive, economically viable and less wasteful (SDG6, SDG11);
• helping to reduce common health risks associated with the lack of sanitation (SDG3);
• progressing the improvement of living standards for the poor (SDG11).

The project focus is on the watershed region containing Greater Mumbai (India) and on the Rio das Velhas Watershed (Brazil), which is home to Belo Horizonte.

Beyond densely populated urban centres, these watershed regions contain formal and informal communities of different sizes, villages, as well as swaths of sparsely populated agricultural land, forests and mangroves.

The municipalities and communities in these regions face fundamental sanitation challenges (such as the universal collection and treatment of sewage).

They offer unique opportunities to study the entanglement of co-evolving urban, peri-urban and rural systems at varying stages of infrastructural development.

The project runs from 2019 to 2021.

SASSI (A Systems Approach to Sustainable Sanitation Challenges in Urbanising China) aims to enhance our understanding of complex human-environment interactions and their sustainability outcomes.

SASSI will define and advance a systems approach for sanitation which situates basic human functions within wider human ecosystems of critical social, economic and environmental resources and social institutions, cycles and order.

The project studies sustainability outcomes across different sanitation systems, environments and temporal scales using various analytical approaches and state-of-the-art modelling.

SASSI addresses cross-cutting issues in sustainable development.

It focuses on Shanghai (China) as a prime example of urban transformation, drawing on quantitative and qualitative data to understand the development of infrastructure over time and explore how possible context-specific policy- or design-focused interventions may contribute to sustainable development in the future.

Science journalist Kendall Powell writes: "In general, there seems to be a notable lack of consultation between architects and people who will work in their creations.

"One exception is the 2015 National Graphene Institute (NGI) on the campus of The University of Manchester, UK.

"Designers collaborated with institute researchers to yield a beautiful, functional building with easily adaptable clean rooms and other lab spaces enclosed by glass that invite both light and transparency around the work.

"Contributors Albena Yaneva and Stelios Zavos conclude that the NGI’s labs actively shape and regulate the research culture, promoting 'ecologies of innovation', and 'new alliances of science, society, and industry'.

Nature 564, 36-38 (2018).

As well as contextualising the publication, Stephen will be looking at some of the ways in which this book should be understood as a product of its time. Drawing on his own RIBA funded research project ‘Understanding the Architecture of the Travelling Street Fair’, Stephen will be discussing the reflections on architectural practice and education in the 1960s which this seminal piece evokes.

What would the flavour and focus of this study be if it was undertaken in 2018? Stephen will open up discussions around this question, with a focus on the work of Braithwaite and the important aspects of Fairground Architecture which have developed beyond this.

David’s widow, Joanna Braithwaite and daughter, Dr Naomi Braithwaite, will be giving a brief introduction to Stephen’s talk. It will be followed by a Q&A with the audience.

Article originally published on the .