Pierre Shaw

Bio

My PhD title:

Critical spatial praxis: creating conditions and pedagogies of support

My PhD summary:

This practice-based research project responds to the growing conversation around how to support graduate critical spatial practice in developing their own new forms of practice, beyond the current post Part One architectural education offer in the UK. The proposal is centred around my practice as co-founder of School SOS (SOS), a small independent critical spatial design school operating in London and the wider UK. Employing practice as methodology, this research aims to contribute to the gap in knowledge in the provision of architectural education for this form of future practice.

Combined with interviews with leaders in education, direct participation of students and the design and practice of curriculum design, the research demonstrates unique contribution to the issues of rising student costs, the changing practice of architecture, and access to critical spatial practices. The research draws on feminist theory, pedagogic theory, critical social theory, history and theory of architectural education as well as the alternative arts school landscape, with the aim of forming support mechanisms for new forms of critical practice and propose how, as educators, we might equip graduates with the confidence and skills to engage with the practice of the future.

My PhD supervisors:

Dr Kim Trogal, Professor Cat Rossi and Professor Anne Massey.

More about me:

I am a co-founder of SOS, a nomadic Not-For-Profit Critical Design School that seeks to challenge modes of delivering Higher Education in the UK. I obtained my BA in Architecture at the University of Sheffield before completing an MA in Architecture at the Royal College of Art in 2018. I am an Associate Lecturer for MA Design for Social Innovation at UAL, London and for Interior Design at the Royal College of Art.

I have published for e-flux Architecture and held research fellowships with the British Council and CAMPO in Rome. I am a visiting critic at the AA, RCA, University of Toronto, Oxford Brookes, among other institutions. Alongside research in architecture, I am a practicing architect working across public typologies and was awarded the RIBA London Award with my previous team at Stirling Prize winners, Haworth Tompkins.