Professor Igea Troiani

I am a Professor and Head of the School of Architecture and Planning at LSBU. I am an architect and academic with nearly 30 years experience of working in a university (including architecture practice) gained in the UK (London, Oxford and Plymouth), China (Suzhou), Germany (Münster) and Australia (Brisbane and Melbourne).

My three key areas of research are 1) the social production of the architect and their architecture; 2) architecture and media (focusing on publishing and filmmaking) and; 3) architectural labour, neoliberalism and sustainable ecologies. I study architecture from a sociological perspective to determine the conditions in which architecture is, and architects are, socially, culturally and economically produced and am an expert in architectural sociology. My books include: 'The Politics of Making' (2017/2007); 'Transdisciplinary Urbanism and Culture' (2017); 'Architecture Filmmaking' (2019); 'Visual Research Methods in Architecture' (2021); and 'Spaces of Tolerance' (2021), and ‘Work-life Balance in Architecture’(2024).
I was a member of the Executive Committee and Secretary of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia & New Zealand (SAHANZ), and Chair of the Architectural Humanities Research Association (AHRA). I remain an AHRA Steering group member. In AHRA, I initiated and founded the interdisciplinary award-winning journal, 'Architecture and Culture' for which I was editor-in-chief from 2013 to 2023. I have given invited keynote addresses and lectures in Leeds, Manchester, Bristol, Copenhagen, Karlsruhe, Melbourne and have been interviewed on radio.
Throughout my academic life I have supervised 100s of dissertations at undergraduate and postgraduate level, and some have won awards. I am a supervisor of PhDs and PhDs by Design and have supervised PhDs to completion, so I welcome potential PhD students reaching out to me. I have examined PhDs in Ireland, Australia, Portugal and the UK. I am an External Examiner at the University of Westminster and Cardiff University and have examined Part 2 courses at the University of Sheffield, and Birmingham School of Architecture. I was an invited juror for The Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ) and the Royal Institute of British Architects (R.I.B.A) (Dissertation) prize and was recipient of a Research Excellence Award in 2017. As PI working with Dr Mamuna Iqbal and Paula Roush, I was recently awarded the Lilly Reich Grant for equality in architecture from the Fundacio Mies van der Rohe in Barcelona to make a documentary entitled Transnational Narratives: A Documentary celebrating South Asian Women in Architecture. It is due for release September 2025.
In 1996, I became a registered architect in Australia. In 2008, I cofounded Original Field of Architecture (OFA) in Oxford with my husband, Andrew Dawson. I began co-teaching studios with Andrew Dawson in 1998. We have two children, Lola and Valentino.

Professor and Head of the School of Architecture and Planning