Email: portico-services@ucl.ac.uk
Help Desk: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ras/portico/helpdesk
- Professor of Architecture and Design through Production
- The Bartlett School of Architecture
- Faculty of the Built Environment
Bob Sheil is Professor in Architecture and Design through Production at The Bartlett School of Architecture UCL.
He is an educator, critic, researcher, collaborator and practitioner, as well as an experimental designer who is fascinated by transgression between making, craft, and technology, in architectural design practice. He started out as a researcher practitioner as a founding partner of sixteen*(makers) in 1994, whose work in collaboration with Stahlbogen GmbH ‘55/02’ won a RIBA award for design in 2010. Recent projects involve collaboration with the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, SHUNT, ScanLAB projects, and Thomas Pearce.
He is the author of multiple book chapters, refereed papers, and articles on design, making and technology. He has co-designed and built 6 significant artefacts/built works, and been internationally exhibited on 11 occasions. He has edited six books, including three issues of Architectural Design; ‘Design through Making’ (2005), ‘Protoarchitecture’ (2008), ‘High Definition’ (2014), an AD Reader ‘Manufacturing the Bespoke’ published in 2012, ‘55/02: A sixteen*(makers) Monograph’ (also 2012) and
He is a Co-Founder of the highly acclaimed international triennial conference 'FABRICATE', for which he was Co-Chair and Co-Editor in 2011 (London) 2017 (Zurich), and 2020 (online) alongside Conference Chairs Jenny Sabin and Jane Burry. FABRICATE was also one of the open access pioneers of UCL Press and together the four volume series has generated more than 250,000 downloads across more than 120 countries.




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.
With over 25 years experience, Bob's approach to teaching stems from workshop experimentation, physical and tactile engagement with the production of design, exposure to a broad field of evolving technologies and tooling, and a motive to challenge the expected norms of architectural practice and its disciplinary habits. This practice has been distinguished by its dedication to learning by doing, and its critical approach to drawing as an iterative and cyclical process associated with instructions to make.
2014 – 2022 | Director of School | Bartlett School of Architecture | UCL, United Kingdom |
2012 | Professor in Architecture and Design through Production | Bartlett School of Architecture | UCL, United Kingdom |
2011 | Founder and Co-Chair | FABRICATE Triennal International Conference | , United Kingdom |
2011 | PhD Supervisor | Bartlett School of Architecture | UCL, United Kingdom |
2009 – 2016 | Director of Technology | Bartlett School of Architecture | UCL, United Kingdom |
2005 – 2009 | Programme Coordinator MArch Architecture (ARB/RIBA Part 2) | Bartlett School of Architecture | UCL, United Kingdom |
2005 – 2012 | Senior Lecturer | Bartlett School of Architecture | UCL, United Kingdom |
2003 – 2014 | Design Tutor MArch Architecture (PG23) | Bartlett School of Architecture | UCL, United Kingdom |
2000 – 2004 | Architecture Technology Coordinator | Bartlett School of Architecture | UCL, United Kingdom |
1999 – 2005 | Lecturer in Architecture | Bartlett School of Architecture | UCL, United Kingdom |
1997 – 2003 | Design Tutor BSc Architecture (UG6) | Bartlett School of Architecture | UCL, United Kingdom |
1997 – 1999 | Teaching Fellow | Bartlett School of Architecture | UCL, United Kingdom |
1995 – 2000 | Workshop Supervisor and Tutor | Bartlett School of Architecture | UCL, United Kingdom |
1995 – 1997 | Artist-in-Residence | Bartlett School of Architecture | UCL, United Kingdom |
1994 | Founding Partner | sixteen*(makers) | , United Kingdom |
1994 | Diploma of Architecture | University College London | |
1991 | Bachelor of Science | University College London |