Dr Chris L. Smith

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Associate Professor
Chris L. Smith
Head of Architecture; Associate Professor in Architectural Design and Techné; Associate Dean (Undergraduate)
Room 328, 148 City Road, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006
+61 2 9351 5905




Current Research . Current Teaching . Current Projects . Publications


Current Research

Chris L. Smith is the Head of Architecture, Associate Dean (Undergraduate) and Associate Professor in Architectural Design and Techné. Chris has lectured internationally. His research is concerned with the interdisciplinary nexus of philosophy, biology and architectural theory. He has published on the political philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari; technologies of the body; and the influence of ‘the eclipse of Darwinism’ phase on contemporary architectural theory. Presently Chris is concentrating upon the changing relation the discourses of philosophy, biology and architecture maintain in respect to notions of matter and materiality and the medicalisation of architecture.

Current Teaching

BDES3020: Design Studio 302 - Third year design studio

Current Projects

I am presently working on two key projects: The first is an edited text that is the result of a conference I co-organised in the UK with Andrew Ballantyne and Sally Jane Norman titled Architecture in the Space of Flows. The text will focus on the understanding of selves, buildings and cities as modulators of flows. This project draws upon research conducted through the Tectonic Cultures Research Group and the Cultural Technologies of the Body Research Group at Newcastle University UK. The second project is titled 'Architectures: Critical and Clinical'. This project explores a method derived from the work of Gilles Deleuze for the analysis of deployments of body constructs from medical to architectural theory. This work will extend from and contextualise a number of my published papers.

Academic Awards
1995
Bachelor of Science (Architecture) degree with merit.
1998 Bachelor of Architecture degree with Honours Class I.
2004
Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice and membership to the Higher Education Academy from Newcastle University, UK.
2005 PhD in Architectural Theory.

Prizes and awards

2009 TIES Large Grant Scheme 2009 for 'Architecture Program Curriculum Mapping by Content and Graduate Attributes' with Simon Weir. The grant allows a detailed curriculum review of the Faculty's BDesArch and MArch degrees in respect to graduate attributes and the Royal Australian Institute of Architecture accreditation criteria. ($43,398 AUD). 
2009 Strategic eLearning Development Projects Grant for 'Information Architecture: a coordinated approach to e-Learning for Students of the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning' with Ross Anderson and Krishna Shrestha. The intention of this strategic project is to create a centralised e-learning experience for students through the development of WebCT sites for every Unit of Study for the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning. (Grant 'in-kind': Project administration; 350 hours in total of educational and graphic designers time).
2009 City of Sydney Grants program for the Sydney Writers Festival 2009. The grant is for the staging of an event 'Metaphors of Space: Between Poetry and Architecture' in association with Mascara Poetry. ($1400 AUD + Bangarra Mezzanine, Sydney Dance Theatre).
2008
Awarded a Research Enhanced Learning and Teaching Scholarship grant to explore best practice in the use of digital technology for the support of research-led learning and teaching in architectural construction. ($3000 AUD).
2006 Awarded a University Teaching and Learning Grant to explore the use of easily accessible digital technologies in teaching and learning (£5000).
Newcastle University, UK.
1998
Awarded an Australian Postgraduate Award Research Scholarship to support doctoral studies.
1997 Awarded the University of Newcastle Vice-Chancellor's Honours Scholarship for excellence in academic performance.The University of Newcastle, Australia.
1997 Awarded the Royal Australian Institute of Architects Sydney C. Morton Prize for technology studies in Architecture.
1997 Awarded the Board of Architects of New South Wales Prize for the highest performing architecture student at The University of Newcastle; 1997.

Publications

Forthcoming edited book (under contract)

2010 Andrew Ballantyne and Chris L. Smith eds., Architecture in the Space of
Flows
, (London: Routledge).

Edited book sections

2009
'To Lighten: In the Glare of 01 Bligh', in Richard Francis-Jones, Lawrence Nield, Xing Ruan and Deborah van der Plaat (eds.), Skyplane, (Sydney: UNSW Press [March 2009]), 160-73.
2005 'Differential Mechanisms: form and matter' in The Erotic: Approaches to a Cultural Contextualisation. The eBook is Volume 5 of the Critical Issues series entitled 'The Erotic', edited by Koen De Temmerman, ISBN: 1-904710-04-2.
2004
'Architecture, Biology, Philosophy and the Hopeful Monster', in Paul L. Yoder and Peter Mario Kreuter eds, Monsters and the Monstrous, (Oxford: Inter-disciplinary Press, 2004). ISBN: 1-904710-21-2
2003 'The Impassive Politics of Language: Speech-acts and the Body of Architectural History', in Christian Hermansen and Elizabeth Tostrup eds, Con,text: (Theorising) History in Architecture and Design, (Oslo: Architekthøgskolen i Oslo, 2003), 107-15

Forthcoming edited book sections

2010 2010 ‘Preceding an Architectural Body’, in Jean-Jacques LeCercle and
Francoise Kral, eds. Awakawa and Gins: Architecture and Philosophy,
(Amsterdam: Ridopi, [2010]), 121-37.
2010 ‘Hopeful’ in Elizabeth Grierson, Harriet Edquist and Hélène Frichot
eds., Designing Design: Cartographies of Theory and Practice, (MA: Lexington
Press: 2010).

 

Guest edited journal edition

2008 Chris L. Smith and Andrew Ballantyne guest eds, Architectural Theory Review (13/3:2008) special edition 'Flows'. 

 

Forthcoming guest edited journal edition

2009 Chris L. Smith and Andrew Ballantyne guest eds, Architectural Research
Quarterly (ARQ)
(14/1:2010) Special edition: ‘Architectural Flows’.

Refereed journal papers

 

2009
‘Text and the Deployment of the Masochist’, Angelaki: Journal of
Theoretical Humanities
,
(14/3:2009), 45-57. ISSN: 1469-2899 (electronic) 0969-725X (paper).
2008 Chris L. Smith and Andrew Ballantyne, ‘Thinking Flows’, Architectural
Theory Review
, (13/3: 2008): 271-3.
2006
‘The Problem of Writing Architecture’, Journal for Cultural Research,
10(2), 185-197.
2002 ‘The Habit and its Fictions: Analogy and the Appropriate(d) Body of
Architecture,’ within John Macarthur & Antony Moulis, Colophon: Additions to
Architectural Histor
y, (Brisbane: Society of Architectural Historians,
Australia and New Zealand, 2002).
2001 ‘anOther Hopeful Monster: Reading a Motion from Modern Figuration,’
within Formulation Fabrication, Papers of the Seventeenth Annual Conference
of the Society of Architectural Historians of Australia and New Zealand,
Wellington, New Zealand.
2000 ‘A Very Becoming Whale: a (re)emerging Origin in the Construction of an
Architectural Body,’ Habitus: a sense of place, international conference
proceedings, Perth, Western Australia, Australia.

Exhibitions/Events

2009
‘Metaphors of Space: Between Poetry and Architecture’
Convened. Sydney Writers Festival
Sunday 24 May 2009
Pier 4 Sydney Dance Theatre; Bangarra Mezzanine, Walsh Bay.
Sydney, Australia.
2009
Constructing education
Tuesday Night Talks (TNT)
Roundtable with Professor Shane Murray
May 05, Tusculum, AIA.
2008
‘The Philosophy of Life: Architecture, Nature, Ethics’
Invited colloquium speaker
05 September 2007
University of South Australia.
2006 Architectural Interventions in the Body
March 13-19, 2006.
An exhibition of conceptual design work in/of the body.
Queen’s Campus, Durham University, UK.
2005

The Bolam Coyne Competition Exhibition
February 14-18, 2005.
The Long Gallery, The Hatton
Newcastle University, UK.

2005

City Sense Showcase
June 20-24, 2005.
An exhibition of images and film put on especially for Architecture Week.
In collaboration with Northern Architecture and video artist Steve Baxter
The Park Centre, Cruddas Park, UK