Liam Ross MA MArch ARB

Liam is an architect and lecturer in architectural design at ESALA.  He studied at the University of Edinburgh, and at the Architectural Association, London, before going on to practice in Edinburgh, London and New York.  He has experience working on projects in the UK, USA, Russia and UAE, and prior to becoming a lecturer, spent 5 years with Malcolm Fraser Architects, leading and assisting on projects at all stages of the design process. He has received a number of awards for his academic and professional design work, including commendations from ArchiPrix, the Urban Studies and Architecture Institute New York, and the Edinburgh Architecture Association.  In 2012 he was selected to exhibit in the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

He has been a staff member at ESALA since 2008, where he leads or contributes to courses in design, theory, and professional studies.  His principal teaching and research interests concern the relation between architectural design practice and its governmental frameworks.  He has run a series of research-led design studios studying the architecture of a range of regulatory requirements, from Domestic Standards to Environmental Impact Assessment.  He is currently a doctoral candidate by Design, supervised by Dr. Dorian Wiszniewski, and is working on a genealogical survey of the development of UK Building Standards.

Further to his work at ESALA, Liam has taught as an invited critic at Newcastle University, Tong-Chi University and SUNY Buffalo, and is an external examiner at Oxford Brookes University.  His research has been presented, exhibited and published in both national and international contexts, and besides his academic outputs, he makes journalistic contributions to online and print magazines including Archi-Ned, Blueprint, Prospect and Volume.  He maintains an engagement with speculative design practice, and in 2012 – with colleague Lisa Moffit – he established ‘ESALA Projects’, an initiative that supports design consultancy undertaken by staff and students in the school.

Qualifications

• 2004 Master of Architecture, University of Edinburgh
• 2001 Master of Architecture, University of Edinburgh
• 2008 APEAS Examination in Professional Practice and Management, Part 3

Publications, Exhibitions and Presentations

• 2013, ‘An Unexpected Application of the Rule’, included in Volume 38
• 2012,’Invitation and Escape’ included in Theory By Design, Antwerp, 2012
• 2012, ‘British Standard / Lagos Exception’, exhibited at the British Pavilion, 13th Venice Architecture
• 2012, ‘Designing Risk’, included in Healthy Design Creative Safety, HSE / RIBA
• 2011, ‘Compliant Architecture: Regulatory Limits and the Materiality of Risk‘, included in Candide: Journal of Architectural Knowledge, Volume 4, RWTH Aachen / Actar
• 2011, Diagramming BS8213: Safe Cleaning of Windows. Further Reading Required, Bartlett, UCL
• 2010, ‘What is the Disposition of the Architect-Curators”, included in cityspeculations 3, Firenze: Curating the City, University of Edinburgh
• 2010, ‘The Boredom of Building Regulation’, Cultural Role of Architecture, Lincoln
• 2010, Contributed to ‘Drawing for Explanation’, Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh
• 2009, ‘Stuff up the Cracks’, included in Architecture &: Work, University of Edinburgh
• 2007, ‘An Excess of Unthinking Material’, Tectonics: Making Meaning, TU Eindhoven / Critique of the New, Architecture Association
• 2006, ‘What is That Thing on Your Waterfront?’, included in Scroope 18, University of Cambridge / EAR, Edinburgh University Press

Awards