Suzanne C Ewing
MA (Hons) Cantab Dip Arch, ARB reg
Lecturer in Architectural Design and Theory
Director of Academy Practice Partnership

Room: 3.66
Tel: 0131 650 2303
Email: suzanne.ewing@ed.ac.uk

ESALA,
School of Arts, Culture and Environment (ACE)
The University of Edinburgh
Minto House
20 Chambers Street
EH1 1JZ, Scotland

Profile

Suzanne is an architect and educator working in academic, practice, and public contexts. Her work centres on discourses of studio and field, future city building and innovative collaborative practices.

Her research on Field/Work, aims to articulate histories, methodologies and current practices of field/ site work in architectural design practice and education, and in relation to interdisciplinary understandings of working ‘in situ’.

Irrigations is an ongoing exploration of city-making as inflected and affected by contemporary dilemmas of Southern European urbanism: the ‘saltcity’ of Cádiz; the heterotopic nature of civic framed cultural events; spatial dialectics, fragility of environmental/material sustainability. Research consolidates collective urban fieldwork and draws from contemporary discourses of landscape, urbanism, hydropolitics, spatial products.

Inconspicuous consumption is an emerging examination and critique of micro-infrastructures, kitchens, servicing paradigms, spatial intimacy, as established by, contested, and responded to in design practice. This work draws empirically from built projects and design competition proposals completed since 2002 by zone architects, alongside historical and theoretical narratives of everyday practices, the interior and late modernity.

She actively contributes to debates on Architecture and Education and has experience of leading Studio teaching at all levels of Professional Architecture Programmes, as well as contributing to taught Postgraduate Teaching in the MArch and MScAAD since 2006. She has been invited to be a guest critic/ professor at various European Schools of Architecture. Her approach to teaching and learning aims to enable the pursuit of in-depth research, experimentation and innovative design.

Biography

Suzanne graduated from The University of Cambridge in 1989 and 1992. She qualified as an Architect in 1995 and worked in Architectural practice from 1990-1998 with ongoing practice engagement as a partner in zone architects from 2002. From 1998 she was a Lecturer in Architecture at the University of Newcastle and from October 2002 has been based at The University of Edinburgh. She is currently on the Steering Group of AHRA (Architectural Humanities Research Association), and recently chaired Field/Work, the 6th International AHRA Conference held in Edinburgh (2009).

Publications

Ewing S (2009) ‘Intensification and intimacy: an examination of Charles and Ray Eames’ film, Blacktop: A story of the washing of a schoolyard (1952)’, Architecture Theory Review Vol. 14 No. 2, August 2009 pp119-130.

Ewing S (2009) ‘Choosing (what) to learn from – Las Vegas, Los Angeles, London, Rome, Lagos…?’ in Chaplin, S & Stara, A eds., Curating Architecture and the City, London, Routledge, pp23-38

Ewing S (2008) SaltCity: Cádiz Field + Work 2006-2008, Architecture, University of Edinburgh.

Ewing, S (2008) ‘Coming and going: itinerant education and educational capital’, in Roaf, S & Bairstow, A , eds., The Oxford Conference 2008: A re-evaluation of Education in Architecture, Wiley.

Ewing S (2006) 'Hearth and cloth- dwelling practice and production in Eastern Tibet' in Madge, J & Peckham, A eds. Narrating Architecture, London, Routledge pp 419-438.

Ewing S (2003) 'Horizon in the Hamar Museum: an instrument of architecture and a way of looking at site' in Menin, S ed., Constructing Place: Mind and Matter, London, Routledge, pp297-310

Ewing, S (2003) 'Confrontation, limits and fracture:The invention of site in Sverre Fehn's Hamar Museum', Architectural Design Vol 73 no.1 Jan/ Feb 2003, pp 93-98

Ewing S (2003) 'Traditions of Appearance: adaptation and change in Eastern Tibetan dwellings' Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review Vol XV No. 1 Fall 2003, pp73-94

Ewing S (2002) 'Hearth and cloth- dwelling practice and production in Eastern Tibet' Journal of Architecture, Vol 7, No 2, summer, pp115-134.

Ewing S (2002) ''Making Space to allow the world in: Appropriation and accommodation of new media in a Tibetan village', in Turgut H & Kellett P, eds. Traditional Environments in a New Millennium, IAPS/ CSBE Network Second International Symposium, Turkey, pp 306-311.

Ewing S & Crawley N (2001) 'The Hearth in The Landscape : The Black Tent of the Nomadic Pastoralist in Tibet', Forum (Research Journal of School of Architecture Planning & Landscape), Volume 4, No.1, p33-40.

Ewing S (1992) 'Drama and Reflections: The nymphaeum of the Villa Giulia, Rome', Scroope (Cambridge Architecture Journal), no. 4, pp41-43.

Research Funding

2009 CEBE Innovative Projects in Learning and Teaching, Field Trips/ Site Visits: What is their place and value in Architectural Education?

2008 University of Edinburgh Development + Alumni Fund; University of Edinburgh Knowledge Transfer Grant, SaltCity: Cádiz Field + Work.

2007 The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland Research Grant, A new understanding of the site visit in Architectural Design Education.

2002 Frederick Williamson Memorial Fund Research Grant (administered by Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, University of Cambridge), A study of spaces between: actions, interactions and articulations in Tibetan streets and gathering places.

1999 University of Newcastle Small Grant to pursue research fieldwork in West China/Eastern Tibet.

1996 Scottish Conservation Bureau grant to attend Fourth International DoCoMoMo conference, Slovakia.

Practice

Suzanne is a co-founder and partner of Edinburgh-based architectural practice, Zone Architects. The practice received a Commendation in the Scottish Design Awards 2003 in the category 'Best Domestic Project' for a new family house in Edinburgh's New Town, and also two Saltire Housing Design Awards in 2003. Recent projects which she has been involved with include a new studio in Granton, a competition winning housing proposal for Bellgrove, Glasgow, a play garden at Kielder Visitor Centre, Northumberland, and ‘Sea Gazing’, speculative proposals for the public realm of Edinburgh’s city waterfront. The practice has hosted and collaborated in public events such as the SixCities Design Festival (2006) and the Cockburn Association Doors Open Day (2007).

Some published references relating to zone architects' projects are noted below:

New Town house, Edinburgh: "Symphony in Grey" ARCA vol.2 no.2 October 2002 p27-30. "Pleasant Shock of the New", The Scotsman, 24 October 2002. "New in the New Town", Scotland on Sunday, 28 July 2002.
Scottish Design Award Commendation 2003
Saltire Housing Design Award 2003

(shop) house 1, Edinburgh: "Perfect Cooperation", Homes & Interiors Scotland, Issue 30, August 2003.

(shop) house 2, Edinburgh: "Paying Dividends", Homes & Interiors Scotland, Issue 30, August 2003."Made to Order", The Sunday Times, June 22 2003. "A Surprise in Store", Scotland on Sunday, March 30 2003.
Saltire Housing Design Award 2003

House & studio, Granton: "Cutting a Path - with Considerable Dash", Homes & Interiors Scotland, Issue 29, June 2003. "Red Hot Blueprints", Sunday Herald, 9 February 2003.

Critical pedagogy

In 2008, the SaltCity: Cádiz Field + Work 2006-2008 Exhibition was held at The Matthew Gallery, Edinburgh from 8- 29 August, as part of the Edinburgh International Art Festival. This curated research/design work produced on the two year Master of Architecture Programme for a public audience. An associated Symposium included participants from academia and practice from Scotland and Spain.

High quality design and research output from her studios have been recognized in national student prizes (RSA Standard Life Prize, Perkin, 2007; 3D Reid 1st-Perkin 2008; RIBA Shortlist – Collier, Perkin 2008; APS 1st-Castle 2008; Landscape Research Group 1st –Bush 2009; RSA Architecture Prize- Perkin 2009) and professional reviews (Architects Journal, Building Design, A+T).

Conference presentations (2000 AEE2, Sheffield; 2007 ENHSA-EAAE, Lisbon; 2008 EAAE, TUDelft; 2008 Oxford, iBEE (Innovation in Built Environment Education), 2009; Opening Lecture at Annual workshop, Curso de Verano Del Suelo Industrial a la Actividad, 20 July 2009, Colegio de Arquitectos de Cádiz, Spain.

Articles/book chapters on Critical pedagogy have been published in- Constantin Spiridonidis, Maria Voyatzaki eds (2008), Roaf, S & Bairstow, A, eds (2008); Leen Van Duin, Roberto Cavallo, François Claessens, Hank Engel eds.(2009); Chaplin, S & Stara, A eds.(2009).

2000 English Heritage Sitooteries Millennium project: a public exhibition of University of Newcastle first year student architectural design work was curated alongside built exhibits by international architects and designers in Belsay Hall, Northumberland.

2001 Induction drawing project for first year architecture students at the University of Newcastle was part of a national award from ‘Drawing Power’.