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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. He was the BA(Hons) Architecture Degree Programme Director (DPD) at Newcastle University from 2021-2024.


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 is a Senior Lecturer in Architecture, teaching across undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, and acting as an examiner in Architectural Practice and Management at RIBA Part III.


Toby is the current Stage 5 Coordinator on the MArch (Master of Architecture) degree programme, and leads the Stage 5 Architectural Design Research and Architectural Design Practice modules, plus a Stage 5 and 6 Architectural Design Studio, Edge Conditions: Transitions together with Professor Zeynep Kezer and Dr Christos Kakalis.


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

Publications

  • Articles

  • Book Chapter

  • Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstracts)

    • Blackman T. Self-Portrait with Building: An examination of situated spatial practice, the spatial body, and the bodily space of the architect and photographer. In: Body Matters: Architectural Humanities Research Association 21st International Conference. 2024, Norwich University of the Arts.
    • Blackman T. Names on the Doorframes, Inches and Ages: Architecture-writing and the house, home and landscape. In: Imagining Pasts, Remembering Futures. 2024, Trinity College Dublin.
    • Blackman T. Memorize the Bathwater, Memorize the Air: Drawing out an architectural knowledge of water in The National's songwriting. In: The Royal Geographical Society, RGS-IBG Annual International Conference. 2024, Imperial College, London.
    • Blackman T. Nobody Else Will be Three: The intimate and the everyday cinema of The National. In: Slices of Everyday Lives. 2019, University of Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • Editorial

    • Blackman T, Lewis H. Introduction. Common Threads: Intersectional Methodologies of Architectural History 2021, 11-12.

  • Exhibitions

    • Blackman T. Please Lift Me Up. 2025. Edinburgh: Royal Scottish Academy, 1.
    • Blackman T. In Concrete, at the Softest Stages. 2025. Edinburgh: Royal Scottish Academy, 1.
    • Blackman T. The Machine, The Body, and The Casket. 2000. Edinburgh: Royal Scottish Academy.

  • Online Publication

  • Review