Faculty Member, Architecture
About
Chris Speed Biography
Chris Speed is a research active designer working within the field of Digital Architecture, Human Geography and Social Computing developing new forms of spatial practice that transform our experience of the built environment. He is a Reader in Digital Architecture across the Schools of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the Edinburgh College of Art, where he teaches undergraduate, masters and supervises PhD students.
His research focus is best characterised by his own PhD thesis entitled ‘A Social Dimension to Digital Architectural Practice’ which presented a critical opportunity for Digital Architecture to develop new forms of practice that embrace social computing principles within a cultural geographical model of space. Chris has sustained a critical enquiry into how digital technology can engage with the field of architecture through shows, publications and events including: V01D exhibition and edited book 2001, Catalogue exhibition and Arts Council digital teachers pack 2002, IBEAM Fonts by Architects exhibition 2003 and CD-Rom, and Out of Scale exhibition 2004. Chris is also deeply involved in the conceptual and practical development of a series of applied digital architectural projects including: Arch-OS - Operating Systems for Architecture (www.arch-os.com) at the University of Plymouth, a infrastructure to stream social, network and environmental data to the internet, and the Centre for Sustainable Futures Green Screen (2007-08), a 50m2 LED matrix located within an atria window of a large urban building.
Chris’ approach to teaching digital media is based upon his research methods and includes working with a broad range of digital systems from electron microscopes to mobile devices such as GPS, video iPods and phones to support creative enquiries across the built environment and landscape. He has a fostered a relationship with HP Labs, Bristol, to support the student use of their MediaScape platform, and is a collaborator on a web based spatial / acoustic archive using GPS technologies with University of Colorado, Boulder; Politecnico di Torino, Italy; University of Brescia, Italy. These relationships have supported seminars and practice based projects with his own students and collaborative workshops with other institutions such as the Bartlett and the Hyperbody Centre at the Technical University of Delft.
Chris’ works have been published in international books and journals, presented at conferences across the world and has had projects commissioned and distributed in a variety of mediums.
Contact Information
Dr Chris Speed, Reader
Schools of Architecture and Landscape Architecture
edinburgh college of art
Lauriston Place, Edinburgh, EH3 9DF, Scotland
+44 (0)131 2216099
+44(0)7917 225815
