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Staff Profile

Professor Katie Lloyd Thomas

Professor of Architectural Theory and History

  • Address: School of Architecture Planning and Landscape
    The Quadrangle
    University of Newcastle
    Newcastle upon Tyne
    NE1 7RU

Background

I trained as an architect at Cambridge University and at the University of East London, and spent some years in architectural practice. I have been involved, first on a part-time basis, in architectural education in the UK for more than 20 years, during which time I completed an MA in Architecture and Critical Theory at Nottingham University (2000) and a PhD at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Middlesex University (2010) entitled ‘Building Materials’ Conceptualising materials via the architectural specification’, now published as a monograph Building Materials: Material theory and the architectural specification (Bloomsbury, 2021).


I'm currently on the HASS Reader and Professor Promotions Committee and an editor at the international journal arq: Architectural Research Quarterly. Since October 2020 I have been the UK lead on a 3.5 year collaboration with academics in Brazil entitled 'Translating Ferro/ Transforming Knowledges of Architecture, Art and Labour for the New Field of Production Studies' (TF/TK) funded by the AHRC and FAPESP www.tf-tk.com. I am a founding member of the feminist art architecture collective taking place, and I am committed to decolonisation and diversification in my teaching. My research is concerned with materiality and technology, and their intersections with architectural concepts, practice and design, and with feminist practice and theory. Notable edited collections include Material Matters (Routledge, 2007) and with Tilo Amhoff and Nick Beech Industries of Architecture (Routledge Critiques, 2015).


Roles since I joined SAPL in 2011 have included co-directing the Architectural Research Collaborative (ARC), acting Chair: SAPL EDI committee and steering group member of AHRA (Architectural Humanities Research Association) and NUHRI (Newcastle University Humanities Research Institute). I have been involved with a number of public facing events beyond the university including 'How We Live Now: Making Spaces in the North East with Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative', with the Farrell Centre at Newcastle Contemporary Art (6 May – 23 July 2022), 'Sparks of Life, Carliol House, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, AHRC Being Human Festival (23-25 Nov 2017) and 'Scaling the Heights' North Tower, Tyne Bridge, AHRC Being Human Festival (18-25 Nov 2016).

Research

My research is concerned with materiality, labour and technology, and their intersections with architectural concepts, practice and design, as in my monograph Building Materials: Material theory and the architectural specification (Bloomsbury, 2021). Edited collections include Material Matters (Routledge, 2007) and as part of a 6 year collaboration with Tilo Amhoff and Nick Beech, Industries of Architecture (Routledge Critiques, 2015). A further collection Building Sites: Architecture, labour and the field of Production Studies is in preparation (Routledge, 2024), co-edited with Matt Davies, Will Thomson and João Marcos de Almeida Lopes.


I have also long been active in feminist practice and theory and in 2001 co-founded the feminist art architecture collective taking place, and led project development and co-ordination for The Other Side of Waiting, a series of five interconnected art installations in the mother and baby unit of Homerton Hospital, East London, raising almost £70,000, and winning two highly competitive grants totalling £24,668 from the Arts Council England. More recently I worked with former members of the Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative to reprint their groundbreaking 1984 book Making Space: Women and the Man-Made Environment (Verso, 2022) and co-wrote the introduction with feminist architectural historian Karen Burns. With the Farrell Centre, we were able to bring and exhibition about the group 'How We Live Now: Making Spaces in the North East with Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative' to Newcastle Contemporary Art (6 May – 23 July 2022).


Current projects include leading on the UK side a 3.5 year collaboration with Brazilian scholars and practitioners, Translating Ferro/Transforming Knowledges of Architecture, Art and Labour www.tf-tk.com. Funded by the AHRC and FAPESP, the project will translate, disseminate, debate and explore the cross-cultural potential of the unique and significant body of the work of the Brazilian architect, artist and theorist Sérgio Ferro which raises questions of global reach about art and architectural production under capitalism. Ferro’s work has been both controversial and acclaimed, and is central to the work of several architects in Brazil working with communities towards self-managed building construction, but it is little-known outside the country. Three volumes of Ferro's work will be published by Mack starting in March 2024, when we also host here at Newcastle, the latest and largest of a series of symposia and lectures, Production Studies International Conference 2024 https://www.tf-tk.com/psic2024 .


My new monograph ‘The Architect as Shopper: Building products and the proprietary turn in architecture in the interwar period' is in preparation and brings together these two areas of my research. The project has been supported by fellowships with the Paul Mellon Foundation, LeverhulmeTrust and the Canadian Centre for Architecture, and has been the subject of talks at the Paul Mellon Foundation, Stockholm Association of Architects and the Architectural Association amongst others.

Teaching

With extensive prior experience in BA studio teaching, I currently teach history and theory at all levels in the architecture programme from Stage 1 to PhD. As director of history and theory I oversaw the restructuring of provision in the BA 2016/17, including the introduction of research-led teaching in new BA dissertation electives encompassing creative practice submissions through to technical investigations. I am committed to establishing seminar teaching at all levels, and to developing relationships between history and theory, and design, practice and technology. At MArch level I have run two linked research projects ‘The Empty Pool’ with Rona Lee, Professor of Fine Art at Northumbria University, and with Dr Will Thomson, Design [over] Site which addressed the invisibility of the building site and construction labour in architectural education.


PhD Supervision


I’ve examined PhDs at KTH, Stockholm; AMO, Oslo; UCD, Dublin; Bartlett UCL, University of Manchester, University of Edinburgh and here at Newcastle, and welcome enquiries from prospective candidates in the areas of material theory and philosophy, labour, technologies and techniques, feminist theory, history and practice.


I currently lead/co-supervise the following doctoral students:


Virginia Rammou, 'Spaces of Dying' (with Dr Ruth Raynor and Dr Shane McCorristine)

Elena Balzarina, 'Ecologies of the Threshold in post-war housing' (with Dr Loes Veldpaus and Dr Claire Harper)

Sarah Ackland, ‘Transformative Spaces for Women: Running and the city’, Forshaw scholarship.(with Dr Juliet Odgers and Dr Claire Harper)

Mike Aling, ‘Irreal Engines: The Model Village and Worldbuilding’ (with Professor Adam Sharr)


Previous supervision includes:


Dr James Craig, ‘The Autobiographical Hinge: Revealing the Intermediate Area of Experience in Architectural Representation’, Northern Bridge Doctoral Studentship (2023).

Dr Sinead Hennessy, ‘Aldo Rossi: Architecture and the Nature of Memory’.

Dr Matt Ozga-Lawn, ‘The Duke in his Domain’, staff PhD by creative practice, (2020).

Dr Ruth Lang, ‘Reconstructing the Immaterial: Networks of influence on the London County Council Schools Division 1943-65’ (2019).

Dr Tijana Stevanović, ‘After the Blueprint: Inhabiting the Unfinished in New Belgrade,’ studentship (2019).

Dr Catalina Mejia Moreno, ‘On Photography, repetition and architectural criticism: ‘Working-through’ the archives of Mies van der Rohe’s German Pavilion and the Buffalo Grain Elevators’ (2018).

Dr Ashley Mason, ‘A Coincidental Plot for Architecture’, PhD by creative practice, ARQ studentship (2018).

Dr Carolina Ramirez-Figueroa: ‘Bio-material Probes, Design Engagements with Living Systems’ (2017).  

Dr James Longfield: ‘Making Byker: The situated practices of the citizen architect’ (2017).




Publications