Skip to main content

Staff Profile

Toby Blackman

Senior Lecturer

Background

Toby is an architect and artist conducting teaching and scholarship at the intersection of architecture, film and photography.


Toby studied Architecture at the University of Edinburgh and Architectural History at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, building on learning across Fine Art (Painting) and the History of Art (Varndean College, Brighton), Photography (Oxford Brookes University) and Film (London Film School). He developed expertise in architectural practice—specialising in design and specification writing—with Manser Medal winners Studio Bednarski and Robert Dye Associates, and the Stirling Prize nominated practice, Allies and Morrison. 


Toby is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, an Arts Emergency Mentor, and a member of the RIBA Validation Panel for Schools of Architecture.


Education and Qualifications

MA (Dist.), The Bartlett, UCL

PGCHE, The University of Nottingham

BArch, The University of Edinburgh

BA(Hons), Oxford Brookes University


Professional Memberships and Societies

Registered Architect, Architects Registration Board (ARB)

Chartered Member, Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)

Fellow, Advance HE (FHEA)

External Examiners Directory, Advance HE (HEA)

Member, Architectural Humanities Research Association (AHRA)

Member, Royal Photographic Society (RPS)

Member, The Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (SAHGB)

Member, The International Visual Sociology Association (IVSA)

Research

Toby is interested in an expanded field of architectural practice. Drawing on the discourses and critical practices of site, writing, feminist film theory and photography, his work explores the embodied, hidden, and ambiguous temporality of architecture.


Toby has exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy Annual Exhibition, and his work was Highly Commended in the 2019 Blueprint Architecture Photography Awards and 2022 Architecture Foundation Writing Prize.


His writing has been published in Architecture and Culture, arq: Architectural Research Quarterly, field, Site-Reading Writing Quarterly, and Visual Studies.

Teaching

Toby Blackman is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape at Newcastle University teaching across the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes of architecture. His primary teaching role is on the postgraduate MArch (Master of Architecture) degree programme, as the Stage 5 Coordinator and Module Leader for the ARC8050 Architectural Design Research and ARC8052 Architectural Design Practice modules. Together with Zeynep Kezer and Christos Kakalis he teaches a vertical, Stage 5 and 6 Architectural Design Studio, Edge Conditions: Transitions.


Additionally, Toby leads a Stage 2 dissertation elective exploring architecture through the situated practices of film and photography in ARC2019, and the Stage 3 Dissertation in Architectural Studies module on the undergraduate, BA (Hons) Architecture degree programme.


Toby was Degree Programme Director (DPD) for the BA(Hons) Architecture from 2021-2024.

Publications