Stephen Walker

I trained as an architect and worked for architectural and design practices in London before joining the studio of Gabriel Allende and Antonio Ruiz Barbarín in Madrid, where I worked for two years. Since returning to the UK, I worked in practice before studying for an MA in Architecture & Critical Theory at the University of Nottingham (Distinction), and PhD at the University of Sheffield.

I taught part- and then full-time in the Faculty of Art and Design at Nottingham Trent University, where I worked for five years before being appointed as a Lecturer in Architecture at the University of Sheffield in February 2001, where I worked until January 2017.

AHRC Peer Review College member (2007–2015); Editorial Board: Field Journal (2007–)and Architecture & Culture: the Journal of the AHRA (Routledge) (2010–); Architectural Humanities Research Association (AHRA) steering group member (2008–); Peer reviewer, The Architectural Theory Review, Architectural Press, Ashgate Publishers, Blackwell Publishers, Routledge, Architectural Theory Review, Architectural Research Quarterly, The Journal of Architecture, Drawing Matter, RGS, The Nordic Journal of Architecture, Palgrave; RIBA Dissertation Prize judge 2015; RIBA Research Trust Panel Member 2015–; Invited panel member: L'Agenzia Nazionale per la Valutazione del sistema Universitario e della Ricerca (ANVUR) (The Italian Research and University Evaluation Agency); National Fairground & Circus Archive (NFCA) Advisory Board Member 2012–; Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT —Science and Technology Foundation, the Portuguese National Research Funding Organization) research evaluation panel member for Architecture & Urbanism, 2019.

My research interests are broadly informed by art, architectural and critical theory and examine the questions that such theoretical projects can raise about particular moments of architectural and artistic practice. A developing methodology has brought together aspects of theory with a wide range of practical work including Mediaeval Breton architecture, ring-roads and the work of contemporary artists. In particular, I have undertaken research on the artist Gordon Matta-Clark, about whom I have now spoken and published extensively. This work has been supported by two grants from the British Academy, and culminated in a monograph published by I. B. Tauris. Tauris also published my monograph on the artist Helen Chadwick, the result of support initially from the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, which funded my archival work on the Helen Chadwick collection in the HMI Archive, and from an AHRC Study Leave Grant. More recent work in this area has focused on the collaborative art/architectural practice of Warren & Mosley.

More recently, I have been developing my research interests and approach towards a more collaborative situation. I was a founder member of The Agency Research Centre, based in the School of Architecture at The University of Sheffield (2009). I have also become involved in a number of collaborative projects with staff elsewhere in the university, including with Professor Vanessa Toulmin (National Fairground Archive), working on the architecture of fairgrounds, an ongoing project that has attracted funding from the University and RIBA Research Trust Award. I was involved in ‘Design Matters’, a WRoCAH (White Rose College of Arts and Humanities) three-way PhD Studentship Network with the Universities of Sheffield, Leeds and York, 2015–18. iI have published widely on the fairground, including two monographs: The Fair Line and the Good Frontage: Surface and Effect (Palgrave, 2018); and Fairground Theory: The Hidden Life and Architecture of the Travelling Fair (Bloomsbury, 2025)

I currently teach an Undergraduate Elective, Architecture and the Body, and a Masters Elective on Occasional Architecture. I contribute to Undergraduate Humanities lectures, and have an M.Arch Dissertation group.