Sophia Psarra
I am an architect-scholar (Professor), Director of MPhil/PhD History and Theory Programme at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. I hold an MSc in Architecture and Urbanism (1986) and a PhD in Architecture from the Bartlett, UCL (1997). Before my appointment at UCL (2011), I was Associate Professor at the University of Michigan (2005-2011) and Lecturer/Senior Lecturer at Cardiff University (1997-2004).
My research is transdisciplinary, spanning architecture and urbanism, spatial morphology, history/theory, cultural studies, and addressing four key subjects:
- The relationship between design conceptualisation and embodied space
- Computational models of spatial morphology and embodied vision
- Space, community and istitutional structures
- Design research and creative architectural practice
I have produced funded research (Leverhulme Trust/NSF-USA/Onassis Foundation - in total of £840,000) of international significance and made outstanding contributions to education. My work is disseminated through two monographs (The Venice Variations: Tracing the Architectural Imagination, UCLPress 2018; Architecture and Narrative: The Formation of Space and Cultural Meaning, Routledge 2009/translated in Korean); two edited volumes (Parliament Buildings: The Architecture of Politics in Europe, UCL Press 2023; Production Sites, Routledge 2019); over 70 research papers; three co-edited volumes of research/educational work, and over 40 invited international lectures in UK, USA, Australia, Chile, Cina, Japan, South Africa and Sweden.
I am editorial board member of Thésis (Brazil 2016-). I was Editor of The Journal of Space Syntax (from 2011 to 2015), and associate editor of Architecture Research Quarterly (ARQ, 2004). I have taken leadership positions in education and developed innovations in teaching through new modules, operating across disciplines (Creative Process interdisciplinary course funded by the Provost of the University of Michigan) and between theory, analytic knowledge and design.
I have supervised 9 doctoral dissertations to completion. I have been external examiner of 16 PhD thesis, both nationally and internationally; external examiner of undergraduate/post graduate programmes and external evaluator of schools of Architecture in the UK and Europe.
I engage with creative practice and have won first prizes/mentions in international architectural competitions. My design work has been recognised through journal articles (16 publications), exhibition catalogues and 13 international exhibitions (Venice Biennale, George Pompidou Centre, The RIBA, NAI Rotterdam).
Through enterprise and public engagement activities, I have collaborated with leading international institutions, practices and local government (The Natural History Museum, London; Museums of Scotland; The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, New York; Camden Council among others).
PhD COMPLETIONS
2017. Athina Lazaridou. Architectural Space and Computation PhD track. 'Three-dimensional Spatial Navigation in Real and Virtual Museums' (second supervisor: Sean Hanna), UCL
2016. Caue Capille. Architectural Space and Computation PhD track. 'Spatial Culture of Public Libraries' (second supervisor: Prof. A. Penn), UCL
2017. Pinar Aycac, (first supervisor: Prof. Murray Fraser), History and Theory PhD track. 'Musealisation in the Urban Context: Multiple Narratives of Sultanahmet Archaeological Park in Istanbul's Historic Peninsula', UCL
2016. Olimpia Cermasi (first supervisor: Valentina Orioli). 'Landscape Urbanism and the Peri-urban Condition: The case of Bologna and Modena in Italy'. University of Bologna, PhD affiliate student, UCL
2009. Ipek Kaynar. 'Architecture Reshaping the Cultural Experience: Visual-Spatial Relations Influencing Visitors' Explorations in Art Museums' (co-supervisor with J. Wineman), University of Michigan
2007. Felix Kabo. 'An Integrative Framework for the Design and Implementation of Large Low-cost Housing Projects', Committee Member, University of Michigan
2007. Linda Nubanni, 'The Relationship Between Spatial and Visibility Characteristics of Residential Neighborhoods and Crime', Committee Member
2007, University of Michigan
2007. Tae Jung Kwon, 'The Perception of Walking Distance in the Configuration of Urban Networks', Committee Member, University of Michigan
Address: The Bartlett School of Architecture
22 Gordon Street
London, WC1H 0QB
United Kingdom
My research is transdisciplinary, spanning architecture and urbanism, spatial morphology, history/theory, cultural studies, and addressing four key subjects:
- The relationship between design conceptualisation and embodied space
- Computational models of spatial morphology and embodied vision
- Space, community and istitutional structures
- Design research and creative architectural practice
I have produced funded research (Leverhulme Trust/NSF-USA/Onassis Foundation - in total of £840,000) of international significance and made outstanding contributions to education. My work is disseminated through two monographs (The Venice Variations: Tracing the Architectural Imagination, UCLPress 2018; Architecture and Narrative: The Formation of Space and Cultural Meaning, Routledge 2009/translated in Korean); two edited volumes (Parliament Buildings: The Architecture of Politics in Europe, UCL Press 2023; Production Sites, Routledge 2019); over 70 research papers; three co-edited volumes of research/educational work, and over 40 invited international lectures in UK, USA, Australia, Chile, Cina, Japan, South Africa and Sweden.
I am editorial board member of Thésis (Brazil 2016-). I was Editor of The Journal of Space Syntax (from 2011 to 2015), and associate editor of Architecture Research Quarterly (ARQ, 2004). I have taken leadership positions in education and developed innovations in teaching through new modules, operating across disciplines (Creative Process interdisciplinary course funded by the Provost of the University of Michigan) and between theory, analytic knowledge and design.
I have supervised 9 doctoral dissertations to completion. I have been external examiner of 16 PhD thesis, both nationally and internationally; external examiner of undergraduate/post graduate programmes and external evaluator of schools of Architecture in the UK and Europe.
I engage with creative practice and have won first prizes/mentions in international architectural competitions. My design work has been recognised through journal articles (16 publications), exhibition catalogues and 13 international exhibitions (Venice Biennale, George Pompidou Centre, The RIBA, NAI Rotterdam).
Through enterprise and public engagement activities, I have collaborated with leading international institutions, practices and local government (The Natural History Museum, London; Museums of Scotland; The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, New York; Camden Council among others).
PhD COMPLETIONS
2017. Athina Lazaridou. Architectural Space and Computation PhD track. 'Three-dimensional Spatial Navigation in Real and Virtual Museums' (second supervisor: Sean Hanna), UCL
2016. Caue Capille. Architectural Space and Computation PhD track. 'Spatial Culture of Public Libraries' (second supervisor: Prof. A. Penn), UCL
2017. Pinar Aycac, (first supervisor: Prof. Murray Fraser), History and Theory PhD track. 'Musealisation in the Urban Context: Multiple Narratives of Sultanahmet Archaeological Park in Istanbul's Historic Peninsula', UCL
2016. Olimpia Cermasi (first supervisor: Valentina Orioli). 'Landscape Urbanism and the Peri-urban Condition: The case of Bologna and Modena in Italy'. University of Bologna, PhD affiliate student, UCL
2009. Ipek Kaynar. 'Architecture Reshaping the Cultural Experience: Visual-Spatial Relations Influencing Visitors' Explorations in Art Museums' (co-supervisor with J. Wineman), University of Michigan
2007. Felix Kabo. 'An Integrative Framework for the Design and Implementation of Large Low-cost Housing Projects', Committee Member, University of Michigan
2007. Linda Nubanni, 'The Relationship Between Spatial and Visibility Characteristics of Residential Neighborhoods and Crime', Committee Member
2007, University of Michigan
2007. Tae Jung Kwon, 'The Perception of Walking Distance in the Configuration of Urban Networks', Committee Member, University of Michigan
Address: The Bartlett School of Architecture
22 Gordon Street
London, WC1H 0QB
United Kingdom
less
InterestsView All (13)
Uploads
Books by Sophia Psarra
Parliament Buildings brings together architecture, history, art history, history of political thought, sociology, behavioural psychology, anthropology and political science to raise a host of challenging questions. How do parliament buildings give physical form to norms and practices, to behaviours, rituals, identities and imaginaries? How are their spatial forms influenced by the political cultures they accommodate? What kinds of histories, politics and morphologies do the diverse European parliaments share, and how do their political trajectories intersect?
This volume offers an eclectic exploration of the complex nexus between architecture and politics in Europe. Including contributions from architects who have designed or remodelled four parliament buildings in Europe, it provides the first comparative, multi-disciplinary study of parliament buildings across Europe and across history.
http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10047544/1/The-Venice-Variations.pdf
From the myth of Arcadia through to the twenty-first century, ideas about sustainability – how we imagine better urban environments – remain persistently relevant, and raise recurring questions. How do cities evolve as complex spaces nurturing both urban creativity and the fortuitous art of discovery, and by which mechanisms do they foster imagination and innovation? While past utopias were conceived in terms of an ideal geometry, contemporary exemplary models of urban design seek technological solutions of optimal organisation. The Venice Variations explores Venice as a prototypical city that may hold unique answers to the ancient narrative of utopia. Venice was not the result of a preconceived ideal but the pragmatic outcome of social and economic networks of communication. Its urban creativity, though, came to represent the quintessential combination of place and institutions of its time.
Through a discussion of Venice and two other works owing their inspiration to this city – Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities and Le Corbusier’s Venice Hospital – Sophia Psarra describes Venice as a system that starts to resemble a highly probabilistic ‘algorithm’. The rapidly escalating processes of urban development around our big cities share many of the motivations for survival, shelter and trade that brought Venice into existence. Rather than seeing these places as problems to be solved, we need to understand how urban complexity can evolve, as happened from its unprepossessing origins in the marshes of the Venetian lagoon to the ‘model city’ enduring a 1000 years. This book frees Venice from stereotypical representations, revealing its generative capacity to inform potential other ‘Venices’ for the future.
Since its inception in the mid 70s, the educational programme of the MSc Spatial Design: Architecture & Cities (formerly Advanced Architectural Studies) has looked at architectural research through the prism of space, combining analytical theories and methods known as space syntax. In 2014-15, the MSc course has integrated design-research in the form of an optional studio module (E-merging Design Research), with the aim to provoke thinking about experimental intersections between generative and analytical explorations. The module investigates innovative links between design research and laboratory research using theories and techniques of spatial visualisation, mapping and analysis. The wider purpose is to overcome the fragmentation of architectural research to an analytical (science-based) and a speculative (arts-based) practice.
Papers by Sophia Psarra
Parliament Buildings brings together architecture, history, art history, history of political thought, sociology, behavioural psychology, anthropology and political science to raise a host of challenging questions. How do parliament buildings give physical form to norms and practices, to behaviours, rituals, identities and imaginaries? How are their spatial forms influenced by the political cultures they accommodate? What kinds of histories, politics and morphologies do the diverse European parliaments share, and how do their political trajectories intersect?
This volume offers an eclectic exploration of the complex nexus between architecture and politics in Europe. Including contributions from architects who have designed or remodelled four parliament buildings in Europe, it provides the first comparative, multi-disciplinary study of parliament buildings across Europe and across history.
http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10047544/1/The-Venice-Variations.pdf
From the myth of Arcadia through to the twenty-first century, ideas about sustainability – how we imagine better urban environments – remain persistently relevant, and raise recurring questions. How do cities evolve as complex spaces nurturing both urban creativity and the fortuitous art of discovery, and by which mechanisms do they foster imagination and innovation? While past utopias were conceived in terms of an ideal geometry, contemporary exemplary models of urban design seek technological solutions of optimal organisation. The Venice Variations explores Venice as a prototypical city that may hold unique answers to the ancient narrative of utopia. Venice was not the result of a preconceived ideal but the pragmatic outcome of social and economic networks of communication. Its urban creativity, though, came to represent the quintessential combination of place and institutions of its time.
Through a discussion of Venice and two other works owing their inspiration to this city – Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities and Le Corbusier’s Venice Hospital – Sophia Psarra describes Venice as a system that starts to resemble a highly probabilistic ‘algorithm’. The rapidly escalating processes of urban development around our big cities share many of the motivations for survival, shelter and trade that brought Venice into existence. Rather than seeing these places as problems to be solved, we need to understand how urban complexity can evolve, as happened from its unprepossessing origins in the marshes of the Venetian lagoon to the ‘model city’ enduring a 1000 years. This book frees Venice from stereotypical representations, revealing its generative capacity to inform potential other ‘Venices’ for the future.
Since its inception in the mid 70s, the educational programme of the MSc Spatial Design: Architecture & Cities (formerly Advanced Architectural Studies) has looked at architectural research through the prism of space, combining analytical theories and methods known as space syntax. In 2014-15, the MSc course has integrated design-research in the form of an optional studio module (E-merging Design Research), with the aim to provoke thinking about experimental intersections between generative and analytical explorations. The module investigates innovative links between design research and laboratory research using theories and techniques of spatial visualisation, mapping and analysis. The wider purpose is to overcome the fragmentation of architectural research to an analytical (science-based) and a speculative (arts-based) practice.
The lecture will propose that the informed synthesis of ‘winged words’ and ‘weighty numbers’ holds the key to what architecture can fundamentally offer as a creative discipline to deal with some of our most pressing architectural and urban questions. It will argue that our ability to synthesise, ethically and creatively, the wisely guided and the unguided evolutionary processes of our buildings and cities is indispensible to addressing key systemic issues. How we employ intersecting definitions of the imagination, authorship and agency can give renewed impetus to such global challenges as climate change, social inequalities and spatial justice, whose well-worn terminology often seems to have lost the power to move.
In contemporary art, theories emerge from a common thematic framework among groups of artists, providing the theoretical tools to analyse contemporary works (Bourriaud). In architecture, Jonathan Hill’s Weather Architecture shifts theory from the realm of abstract reflection to that of practice-based observation by addressing sites (landscape, weather) as co-producers of architecture and culture. In philosophy, Gernot Böhme’s conception of atmosphere proposes the experience of physical sites and spaces as a source of theory, focusing on the user as an active participant, whose conscious presence in space forms an important source of architectural knowledge. Bernard Cache’s conceptualisation of architectural images expands disciplinary knowledge towards sites of imagination - places of becoming and unlimited potentiality (Earth Moves). In that, he readjusts the interrelations between architecture and the urban, in particular. The ‘sites’ of writing and their relation to ideas, objects or architectural spaces, are investigated in Jane Rendell’s work. At the interface of architecture and public art, Rendell explores the potential of theory as a form of architectural practice, and positions the spatiality of the text as a form of site-writing.
These theorists have opened up the debate about potential alternative sites for architectural knowledge and they have frequently done so by querying the boundaries between architecture and other disciplines; theory and practice; writing and making. They approach architectural knowledge as an evolving practice that is physically situated, and in which the culture of place, the experience of space and the politics of location inform contemporary production of ideas and architecture. These site-focused approaches probe the questions: how can knowledge drawn from the observation or analysis of the particular become relevant to the discipline at large? What are emerging alternative sites, where knowledge is generated or from which it is also drawn? How do these relate to traditional sites and well-established typologies such as the architect’s office, the university, the museum, the exhibition, or the library? How do new scenarios present an adaption or substitution of these frameworks? What are the modes of production that are related to these sites, and the associated tools and methods? And, apart from architects themselves, are there other producers of knowledge relevant to the architectural discipline, such as users, curators, theoreticians, activists or “cross-benchers” (Markus Miessen)?
The thematic matrix is production + sites :
Generation, organisation, presentation, mediation (production)
Domestic/intimate, Institutional/formal, urban/public (sites)
We invite contributions for an edited book on the topic of “production sites” with confirmed contributions from Professor Jonathan Hill, Professor Jane Rendell (Bartlett UCL) and Gernot Böhme (TU Darmstadt). Please submit an 1000 word proposal for a book chapter (7000 words), or a visual essay of project-based work (2500 words), or interviews (2500 words). If accepted, you will be invited to present and discuss your work at two symposia/workshops: either at the Bartlett/UCL on 29-30 July 2015, or at The University of Sydney on 29-30th October 2015. Please indicate your preference for either or both events in your submission.
Please email your abstract for review: productionsites@ucl.ac.uk
Key Dates:
Submission of 1000 word abstract and short bio by: 15 January 2015
Notification of Acceptance: 1 February 2015
Draft Chapter presentation at Symposium London: 29-30 July 2015
Draft Chapter presentation at Symposium Sydney: 29-30th October 2015
Submission of all finalised chapters: 18 December 2015.
For any enquiries, please contact the organisers:
Sophia Psarra(s.psarra@ucl.ac.uk); Sandra Löschke(sandra.loschke@sydney.com.au)