In the post digital age, as new tools have dissolved boundaries between the drawn and the made, Bob Sheil argues that how we design has become of equal importance to what we design, and that furthermore, the role and skillset of the designer has been presented with an unprecedented opportunity to expand and diversify. His research is focused on experiments in the production of architecture where questions are developed through integrated acts of design, making and writing. His work explores the complex relationship between design and making, and in particular how this relationship affects and determines the architectural outcome. He looks upon this field as ‘Protoarchitecture’, a speculative approach to architectural production that seeks to create and hypothesize alternative and simultaneous approaches to making architecture, involving varied methodologies of design, and varied methodologies of making.

Selected Publications

Burry, J., Sabin, J., Sheil, R., Skavara, M. (2020) FABRICATE - Making Resilient Architecture (1st ed.). UCL Press

Menges, A., Sheil, R., Glynn, R., Skavara, M. (2017) FABRICATE - Rethinking Design and Construction (1st ed.). UCL Press

Sheil, R. (2014). High Definition: Zero Tolerance in Design and Production.  Architectural Design: London: John Wiley & Sons.

Sheil, R., Callicott, N., Ayres, P., & Sharpe, P. (2012). 55/02 A sixteen*(makers) Project Monograph. Toronto: Riverside Architectural Press.

Sheil, R. (2012). Manufacturing the Bespoke. London and New York: : John Wiley & Sons.

Sheil, R., & Glynn, R. (2011) FABRICATE - Making Digital Architecture (1st ed.). Toronto: Riverside Architectural Press.

Sheil, R. (2008). Protoarchitecture: Analogue and Digital Hybrids. Architectural Design: London: John Wiley & Sons.
Sheil, R. (2005). Design through Making. Architectural Design: London: John Wiley & Sons.