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Staff Profile

Professor Adam Sharr

Professor of Architecture

Background

Introduction

Adam Sharr is Professor of Architecture at Newcastle University, Editor-in-Chief of Cambridge University Press' international architecture journal arq: Architectural Research Quarterly; and Series Editor of Thinkers for Architects, published by Routledge.

He established, and practices with, Design Office - the school’s innovative architecture and urban design consultancy which specialises in research-led design practice, and practice-led research. Design Office was included in the Architect’s Journal’s 40 Under 40 listing in 2020, ‘celebrating the UK's most exciting emerging architectural talent’. With Design Office, and previously practicing as Adam Sharr Architects, his projects have emphasised sustainability, heritage and identity, including dwellings – new houses in Germany, Wales and England - and libraries and learning spaces – such as projects for Newcastle and London Metropolitan Universities.

Adam's most recent book, Modern Architecture, was commissioned by Oxford University Press as part of their Very Short Introductions series, published in November 2018. Creative Practice Inquiry in Architecture, co-edited with Ashley Mason, concerning inter-disciplinary design research, is due for publication with Routledge in summer 2022.

He is author or editor of eight books on architecture, including Heidegger's Hut (MIT Press, 2006 – reprinted in paperback, 2017), Heidegger for Architects (Routledge, 2007), Reading Architecture and Culture (Routledge, 2012), and Demolishing Whitehall: Leslie Martin, Harold Wilson and the Architecture of White Heat (co-written with Stephen Thornton, Ashgate, 2013; commended in the RIBA President's Awards for Research, 2014; and reprinted in paperback by Routledge, 2018).

Before coming to Newcastle, Adam previously worked at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University, and Nottingham University, and practiced with Wright and Wright Architects, Dean Hawkes Architect, and the conservation practice Carden and Godfrey.

Adam served as Head of the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape between 2016 and 2021.

Qualifications

BSc (Hons.), BArch (Dist.), Ph.D, ARB, RIBA

Previous Academic Positions

Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University
Nottingham University

Memberships

Architects Registration Board
Royal Institute of British Architects

Research

Like society at-large, architecture currently faces significant global challenges including: combatting our climate emergency; addressing identity and ensuring diversity and inclusion; extending environmental approaches and construction technologies; advocating for social justice, community, and civic life; mobilising creativity and innovation for the greater good; celebrating expertise at a time of fake news; and valuing both contemporaneity and heritage. Like architecture itself, such challenges concern culture as much as technology. Change can only be affected by appreciating how established cultural values and habits get produced and mobilised, and by understanding the tools necessary to make change happen. This is the broad focus of my work, across design and research practice: examining the shape and relevance of architectural culture, its values, habits, priorities, and tools.

My research practice engages designing, writing, editing, drawing, and exhibiting. I pursue architectural ways of knowing: looking inward to the field of architecture to explore the histories and contemporary operations of disciplinary cultures; and looking outward to understand how buildings, and architecture’s creative methods, contribute more widely to society, culture, and the academic commonwealth. My design projects have explored how creative practice can be research, examining themes of: heritage, memory and conservation; identity, diversity and inclusivity; dwelling and experience; and learning spaces. All have been informed by climate-literate environmental design. My writing, meanwhile, has pursued the close reading of architecture – inquiring into its values, habits, and commonplace tools – to examine the cultures at work in the theoretical and technical discourses of our contemporary profession. 

Practice-led and practice-based research

Most recently, I've practiced with the Design Office design research consultancy at Newcastle University. Projects have included a major multi-phase refurbishment of the Grade 2* listed Armstrong Building at the University (2011-2018), with research dimensions examining cultures of practice, and conservation values; a DECC-funded study looking at balancing conservation values with sustainable technologies at Hexham Abbey (2011); creative enterprise business units, Gateshead (2018); and work to conserve and alter modernist buildings on the University campus (2012-13).

Though Adam Sharr Architects, I have practice expertise in the design of houses and housing; library and learning spaces and; in architectural conservation. Projects have include new houses for private clients completed in the Oberschwaben, Germany, and in rural mid-Wales. Other projects have involved house extensions, a field study centre, and repairs and alterations to both a Grade 2 listed house in the Cotswolds and a house by the modernist architect John Madin in Birmingham.

Writing

Modern Architecture: A Very Short Introduction

This book explores the technical innovations that opened-up the cultural and intellectual opportunities for modern architecture to happen. It shows how the invention of steel and reinforced concrete radically altered possibilities for shaping buildings, transforming what architects were able to imagine, as did new systems for air conditioning and lighting. While architects weren’t responsible for these innovations, they were among the first to appreciate how they could make the world look and feel different, in connection with imagery from other spheres like modern art and industrial design. Focusing on a selection of modern buildings that also symbolise bigger cultural ideas, I discuss what modern architecture was like, why it was like that, and how it was imagined. Also considering the work of some of the historians and critics who helped to shape modern architecture, the book illustrates how the field owes as much to its storytellers as to its buildings.

Recognising the predominance of the same characters, and Euro-American stories, in architectural history, the book seeks to include some less familiar projects – and introduce some familiar examples in less familiar ways – while nevertheless introducing readers to buildings and ideas that others will expect them to know.

Reading Architecture and Culture

Modern Architecture draws from methods I discussed in a research methods reader, Reading Architecture and Culture: Researching Buildings, Spaces and Documents published in 2012. An edited collection of essays aimed at consolidating a distinctive strand of architectural research, it proposes reading buildings and their details as artifacts of the cultures in which they were inhabited, procured, designed and built. Contributors include David Leatherbarrow, Marco Frascari, Jane Rendell, Jonathan Hill, Michael Cadwell, George Dodds, Flora Samuel and Diana Periton.

Demolishing Whitehall

Demolishing Whitehall: Harold Wilson, Leslie Martin and the Architecture of White Heat was published by Ashgate in 2013, and republished by Routledge in paperback in 2017. An interdisciplinary architecture, politics and history book - co-written with Stephen Thornton, Politics, Cardiff University - it concerns the architect Leslie Martin’s 1965 scheme to rebuild Whitehall, London's government district. Two years after Harold Wilson’s ‘white heat of technology’ speech and three years before the ‘evenements’ of 1968, Martin’s proposal displays the particular priorities of its time. The book examines the Whitehall project as a distinctive manifestation of Wilson's Britain, in which technology was claimed as an instrument of popular salvation. The book has been reviewed in Architectural Review, Architecture Today, Urban History, Architectural History, Planning Perspectives, Environment and Planning B and The Art Newspaper.

Thinkers for Architects

I am editor of the ‘best-selling’ book series Thinkers for Architects published by Routledge, shortlisted for the RIBA Presidents’ Medals for Outstanding University Located Research in 2008, and shortly numbering 15 volumes. The series aims to outline what particular theorists and philosophers have to offer for architects, locate their architectural thinking in the broader context of their work, introduce significant texts, and point architects toward significant insights for design. Volumes in the series have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Turkish. My own book in the series, Heidegger for Architects (2007), deals with the philosopher’s work on dwelling and place, and with questions of authenticity and provincialism raised by his work.

Heidegger's Hut

That book draws from my previous book Heidegger’s Hut (MIT Press, 2006, reprinted in paperback, 2017), which examined how the thinker’s work emerged from his mountain retreat at Todtnauberg. Heidegger’s Hut has been reviewed widely, in New York Times, Los Angeles Times, TLS, Bookforum, Cultural Politics, Chronicle of Higher Education (US), Journal of Architectural Education and Architectural Record. It is also translated into Spanish (Gustavo Gili, 2008), German (Brinkmann and Bose, 2010) and Czech (Archa, 2013). My drawings from the book were exhibited at the Prada Foundation in Venice in 2018.

Quality and Primitive

I am also the co-editor of two books which emerged from conferences I co-organised. Quality Out of Control: Standards for Measuring Architecture, with Allison Dutoit and Juliet Odgers, was published by Routledge in 2010, examining the widespread disagreement about what quality in architecture is, and how it might be measured and achieved. In 2006, Primitive: Original Matters in Architecture, with Juliet Odgers and Flora Samuel, was published, also by Routledge.

Postgraduate Supervision

I welcome PhD and MPhil applicants and would be delighted to discuss projects related to my research, or in architecture and architectural culture more broadly.

Completed:

  • Kieran Connolly, PhD by Creative Practice, Architecture by Default (co-supervised with Samuel Austin)
  • Yun Dai, PhD, Valuing the Heritage of Modern Architecture: Case Studies in Britain and China, co-supervised with John Pendlebury (Passed 2020)
  • Marga Munar Bauza, PhD, On the Limit: Experiencing and Representing Boundaries in Architecture and Urban Design (Passed 2018)
  • Ashley Mason, PhD by Creative Practice, Towards a Paracontextual Practice* (*with Footnotes to Parallel of Life and Art), co-supervised with Katie Lloyd Thomas (Passed 2018)
  • Sam Clark, PhD by Creative Practice, Architectural Reflections on Housing Older People: Nine Stories of Retirement Living, co-supervised with Rose Gilroy (Passed 2018)
  • Yasser Megahed, PhD by Creative Practice, Practiceopolis: Journeys in Architectural Practice, co-supervised with Graham Farmer (Passed 2017)
  • Jose-Luis Hernandez-Hernandez, PhD by Creative Practice, Space Thickening and the Digital Ethereal: Production of Architecture in the Digital Age, co-supervised with Martyn Dade-Robertson (Passed 2017)
  • James Longfield, PhD by Creative Practice, Making Byker: The Situated, Amateur Practices of a Citizen Architect, co-supervised with Katie Lloyd Thomas (Passed 2016)
  • Mhairi McVicar, PhD, Precision in Architectural Production (Passed 2016)
  • Tom Brigden, PhD, AHRC funded: The Protected Vista: An Intellectual and Cultural History, As Seen From Richmond Hill (Passed 2014; Commended: RIBA President's Awards for Research, 2014)
  • Samuel Austin, PhD, AHRC funded: Travels in Lounge Space: Placing the Contemporary British Motorway Service Area (Passed 2012)
  • Edward Wainwright, PhD, AHRC funded: Transparency and Obfuscation: Norman Foster, Henri Lefevbre and the Politics of Modern Architecture (Passed 2011)

Current:

  • Ray Verrall, PhD by Creative Practice, The RIBA Oxford Conference, 1951 (co-supervised with Zeynep Kezer)
  • Hazel Cowie, PhD, Lifestyle Consumption (co-supervised with Samuel Austin)
  • Daniel Goodricke, AHRC funded, PhD by Creative Practice, AHRC funded, Remiagining Children's Spaces with Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children's Books (co-supervised with Prue Chiles and Matthew Grenby)
  • Ceren Senturk, PhD, Signature Architecture in Divided Cities (co-supervised with Ruth Morrow)
  • Laura Mark, PhD, Walmer Yard (co-supervised with Prue Chiles)

Other roles and responsibilities

  • Editor-in-Chief, arq (Architectural Research Quarterly, published by Cambridge University Press), 2014-date (Editor of arq, 2009-2013 and Associate Editor 2004-2009)
  • Series Editor: Thinkers for Architects, published by Routledge. 2006-date
  • Editorial Board Member: Critical Studies in Architecture Series, published by Routledge.
  • Editor (and Founding Editor): made (Materials: Architecture Design Environment, published by the Welsh School of Architecture), 2004-2009
  • Founding Member and Steering Group Member: AHRA (Architectural Humanities Research Association), 2003-2013.
  • Invited International Lectures and Seminars: University of Melbourne (2022), ITS Surabaya, Indonesia (2022), Chinese University of Hong Kong (2022), Southeast University, Nanjing (2021, 2020, 2018); China Academy of Arts (2021); Carleton University, Canada (2020); University of Pennsylvania (2019); University of Manitoba, Canada (2018); Prada Foundation, Venice (2018); UCD, Dublin (2013); Université de Montreal, Canada (2010); Virginia Tech (2010); University of La Coruña (2009). 
  • External Examiner: MArch, Dublin Institute of Technology, 2017-2021
  • External Examiner: BA, MArch, University College, Dublin, 2017-2021
  • External Examiner: BA, MArch, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou, China, 2015-2020
  • External Examiner: MPhil in Architecture and Urban Studies, University of Cambridge, 2017-2019
  • External Examiner: BArch, Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow School of Art, 2013-2016
  • External Examiner: MA in Architectural History, Bartlett, UCL, 2011-2014
  • External Examiner: MSc in Architecture, University of Ulster 2009-2011
  • External Examiner: PhD: Architectural Association (2022); Cambridge (2020, 2022); Bartlett, UCL (2007, 2011); University of Edinburgh (2008, 2009, 2012); University of Sheffield (2009, 2015, 2019); Queen's University Belfast (2021, 2019); MPhil: UCD (2016).
  • Awards Assessor: RIBA Presidents’ Awards for Research, 2012-2013, 2015, 2021.
  • Awards Assessor: RIBA Awards, Wales, 2009.
  • Awards Assessor: RIBA Presidents’ Medals Dissertation Prizes, 2005.
  • Invited Design Critic / Invited Lecturer: Universities of: Pennsylvania; Cambridge; Southeast, Nanjing; Carleton, Ottawa; UCD; Edinburgh; Bath; Liverpool; Nottingham; RGU, Aberdeen; London Metropolitan; West of England; Manitoba, Winnipeg.

Honours and Awards

2020: Design Office design research consultancy listed in the Architect’s Journal’s 40 Under 40 ‘celebrating the UK's most exciting emerging architectural talent’

2019: Refurbishment of the Armstrong Building, Newcastle University, shortlisted RIBA Awards

2018: Drawings exhibited at the Prada Foundation, Venice, as part of the exhibition Machines à Penser - a collateral event at the Venice Architecture Biennale - plus invited participation at the accompanying symposium Inside the Machines.

2014: Demolishing Whitehall: Harold Wilson, Leslie Martin and the Architecture of White Heat, Commended: RIBA President’s Award for Outstanding University Located Research.

2008: Thinkers for Architects, Shortlisted: RIBA President’s Award for Outstanding University Located Research

2007: Heidegger’s Hut, Winner: Scholarly Illustrated Category, American Association of University Presses Book, Journal and Jacket Show.

2006: New House at Llethr, Llysdinam, Newbridge-on-Wye, shortlisted: RIBA Awards

1995: Joint First Prize, SPAB Philip Webb Award

 


Teaching

My teaching has ranged across the discipline of architecture from design studio to history, theory and technology. Most recently, I led the final year of the MArch programme in Newcastle and contributed numerous lectures to modules at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. I supervise seven PhD students.


Publications