Professor of Architecture

  • Academic, PhD Supervisor
  • Research
Professor Charles Holland

Charles Holland is an architect, teacher and writer. He is the principal of Charles Holland Architects, an international architecture and research practice based in the UK. Charles writes extensively about architecture and design and has taught in the UK, US and Europe.

Bio

Charles joined UCA in 2022 as Professor of Architecture. His teaching responsibilities include running an M.Arch design studio focused on housing, specifically in rural locations, and PhD supervision. Charles also co-runs the school’s public talks programme which has included a series of ‘salon’ discussions with respected academics, practitioners, researchers and historians including RURALE which took place at the 2025 Venice Biennale and HARVEST, at the 2024 Folkestone Triennale.

Charles’ practice work has been published internationally and is included in the Phaidon World Atlas of Architecture. He has exhibited at the Venice Biennale, the Oslo Triennial, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Royal Academy of Arts. His work includes housing, civic, education, public realm and exhibition design. Recent projects include What Goes Around, an award-winning performance pavilion in south London, Radical Rooms, an exhibition about houses and power at the Royal Institute of British Architects and Co-Housing in the Countryside, a proposal for new rural housing which was awarded the Davidson Prize in 2022.

Prior to founding CHA, Charles was a director of FAT where he led a number of the practice’s key projects including A House for Essex, a collaboration with the artist Grayson Perry. FAT were also the curators of the British Pavilion at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale.

Prior to his position at UCA, Charles was Adjunct Professor at the University of Brighton and a Visiting Professor at Yale University in the US. He has taught architecture and design at numerous schools in the UK and elsewhere including the Royal College of Art and the State Academy of Fine Arts, Stuttgart.

Charles writes regularly on architecture and design. He has contributed articles to OASE Journal, Perspecta, Architecture Design, Domus and Icon and along with Charles Jencks he co-edited a special edition of AD on Radical Post Modernism. His first book - How To Enjoy Architecture – was published by Yale University Press in 2024.

Research statement

A practicing architect, Charles is currently engaged in both live and research projects. His research areas include: the architecture of the early twentieth century, experimental rural housing and settlements and the development of contemporary architectural language and materials.

His current research includes HARVEST, an ongoing series of projects with Professor Cat Rossi exploring the use of bio-materials and circular processes. HARVEST MOON – a table made from agricultural waste from a forty-mile radius of Canterbury – has been exhibited in Canterbury, Dover and Farnham – the latter as part of the town’s Craft Month – and published in Dezeen. This work builds on previous research including the book chapter “Wild Architecture: The Potential of Self-Build Settlements” (Wiley, 2018). In 2022, Charles led a multi-disciplinary team developing new models for rural housing that was awarded the Davidson Prize.

Charles’ publications include How to Enjoy Architecture, published by Yale University Press in 2024 and Edwardia Revisited, forthcoming from YUP in 2027. Charles has contributed chapters to Borders, edited by Kelly, Massey, Rossi and Trogal (forthcoming from Bloomsbury, 2027) and A Handbook of English Building (forthcoming from Routledge, 2026). He has contributed essays to publications including The Double (published by COTAA, 2026) and History: It’s Just a Story in Staged, AD issue 95.1 (published by Axiomatic Editions, 2025).

Charles lectures and presents his work regularly in both academic and industry contexts. He has contributed to podcasts including Scaffold and A is for Architecture and written for journals including Apollo, Domus, Quaderns, Icon, RIBA Journal and Architecture Today.

Research supervision

Charles is currently supervising the following doctoral students:

  • Carma Masson: Serious Play: Towards a Theory of Playful Architecture.
  • Sarah Moody: Women and the Twentieth Century Decline of the Country House in Fiction, Biography, and Heritage. 
     
    Completed PhD students:
  • Susanna Round: Approaching Architecture as an Artist, exploring DIY, customisation and the social life of buildings. Completed 2019

Professional Membership, Affiliation and Consultancy

  • Chartered Architect: ARB
  • Chartered Member: RIBA
  • Fellow: RSA
  • Guardian: Dover Arts Development
  • 2022 Davidson Prize – First Place
  • 2022 RIBA Radical Rooms – First Prize in RIBA Competition
  • 2021 Tooley Street Triangle – First Prize in LFA Competition
  • 2016 A House For Essex – Special Commendation, AR House of Year
Professor Charles Holland

Media enquiries

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