Profile

My background is in architecture with several years in practice. I carried out my PhD at Lancaster University, which was an interdisciplinary programme, and it was awarded for developing a novel design and fabrication approach termed `tuneable environments’. My research area has become increasingly interdisciplinary, and I have been able to publish research at high-profile venues across a range of research disciplines (design, architecture, engineering, computer science and chemistry). I have successfully secured various funding bids to develop multi-adaptive material systems.

Research Interests

Is it possible for artificial objects, medical devices, structures and even cities to behave as ‘living’ ecosystems, capable of integrating, forming, or, rejuvenating wider ecologies to sustainably share, replenish or enrich habitats? The MEME SiG seeks to explore this question by employing research through design as an approach (i.e. making as the mode of enquiry) to engage with a context’s or application’s entanglements. Engaging with and embedding the notion of entanglements within our design approaches enables strategies/material systems that are; sensitive to an ecologies’ nuances as well as being holistic/coherently scalable so multi-adaptive structures or systems can be generated.

Current challenges interest within this broader research aim are;

1. Multi-Adaptive Materials: how can we develop design tools to enable iterative discourse between an object’s/structure’s physical material make-up so multiple material properties can be tuned, adapted and self-healed robustly, across scales (i.e. molecules to planetary) and at high resolution? 
2. Scaffolds and Exchanges: how can we develop ‘light-touch’ material systems that tap into material and energy flows of a complex context, so they become intertwined and enrich ecologies? How can scaffolds act as vessels that embody processes of decay and rejuvenation to catalyse low-energy construction strategies and enable mutually beneficial interrelationships?
3. Circularity of Matter: how can we develop scalable material strategies that are truly flexible, maximise organisation through interfacing and embody circularity so resources can be re-used, shared, and replenished between devices/objects, structures, and cities without compromising unforeseen demands?
4. Co-creating with Matter and Ecologies: how can we determine and map complex interrelationships/entanglements across scales and time frames so bespoke and sensitive interventions are generated, and desirable adaptions can be informed? How can digital twins or models go beyond only the single structure’s geometric and material make-up but embody and enable the flows and exchanges of a context?
5. Future Visions: what do these themes look like at various scales and implementations and what values do they embody within a given context? 

Current Teaching

My current teaching roles involve teaching design studio for the Master of Architecture programme, which involves leading the 4^th year. The thematic focus of design studio in the first term is; speculate on and define near or far future scenarios based upon site analysis in order to develop urban strategies, unique building programmes and architectural strategies. The second term is based across global UNESCO world heritage sites and centres around indigenous practices to define circular and ecologically sensitive urban and building strategies. I also assist in teaching the technology module for the 4^th year Master of Architecture.

Current Research

• Material and ecology interactions: Development of materials systems that enable bi-directional communication, which are not limited to direct associations. Challenges involve; what constitutes desirable responses within complex systems, how these systems and interactions are represented, and how mutually beneficial interactions can be enabled that occur across scales and time-frames.
• Developing multi-adaptive prostheses: Expanding on previous research to create material systems as well as design and fabrication approaches for prostheses that can self-heal and have multiple properties tuned and adapted.
• ‘Living’ structures:prototype and develop material systems/strategies that enable architectural structures to integrate with material cycles (e.g. carbon cycles) and flows of matter. The aim is to enable mutually beneficial interrelationships to be formed so resources can be exchanged and habitats can be rejuvenated.

PhD Supervision Interests

Architecture, responsive or adaptive architecture, speculative architecture, digital design and fabrication, material computation, shape-changing materials, material and ecological bi-direction intercations, interdisciplinary research between design and chemistry or bio-materials