I am a qualified architect and academic who  studied for five degrees at the UCL Bartlett School of Architecture before working in architectural practice and starting upon my teaching career at Oxford Brookes  University and then the University of Westminster. I took up my current post  as Professor of Architecture and Global Culture at the UCL Bartlett in July  2011. Previously I was the Director of Design at Oxford Brookes and the  Director of Postgraduate Studies and Research at Westminster.

I  have also had extensive involvement in academic  strategy and administration, especially in relation to professional organisations.  Currently I am a member of the RIBA Awards Group, which amongst its other  duties selects the annual shortlist for the Stirling Prize. I  served as a  member of the ARB/RIBA Visiting Board Pool from 2000-05, acting as  a Chair of Visiting Boards for the latter part of this  period. I also  served on the ARB Assessment Panel from 2000-05. I  was a member of the  team that in 2000 wrote the first-ever undergraduate QAA Benchmark Statement  for Architecture. I have been an external examiner for a range of Part 1-  and Part 2- accredited courses at institutions such as Bath University,  Nottingham University,  University of East London and Westminster University,  as well as on MA courses at University College Dublin, University College  London, etc. I was  specially appointed as the Senior Visiting Professor at the Technical  University of Malaysia from 2005-08. I have also acted as an external examiner  for many PhD theses  in Britain,  Ireland and Australia. 

I have been asked at various points to  provide external  scrutiny or advice/mentoring for courses at the UCL Bartlett, Central  St  Martin’s College of Art, Scott  Sutherland School, Innsbruck University and the Technical University of Malaysia. I am currently the senior academic  advisor for setting up an entire new university in Karachi  in Pakistan, to be called  the Nazeer Hussain University.

Over the years I have given many keynote lectures on various aspects of  architectural design, architectural history & theory, urbanism and architectural  education at institutions in Britain, Ireland, continental Europe, USA,  Australia, Turkey, Malaysia, Singapore and elsewhere; such talks include the  2002  RIBA National Conference in Birmingham and the 2010 Graduate Research  Conference at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. I was also invited  to run the Design Research forum at the major international Oxford Conference on  Architectural Education in 2008. In regard to design, I was awarded a Special Mention in the  2004 RIBA London House of the Future competition.