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IAS Book Launch 'Building Sites: Architecture, Labour and Production Studies'

11 June 2026, 6:30 pm–8:00 pm

book cover of 'Building Sites: Architecture, Labour and Production Studies'

'Building Sites' addresses the need to advance the understanding of relations between architectural design and the labour of building. The IAS is pleased to welcome the editors Matt Davies, Will Thomson and Katie Lloyd Thomas to present their book.

Event Information

Open to

All

Availability

Yes

Organiser

Institute of Advanced Studies

Location

IAS Common Ground
G11, ground floor, South Wing
UCL, Gower Street, London
WC1E6BT
United Kingdom
About the book

The book questions a central and problematic omission in architectural discourse, education and practice - the production of buildings, and the erasure of construction labour entailed by that omission. Through its engagement with the ground-breaking work of the architect and theorist Sérgio Ferro, who developed a history of architecture ‘seen from the building site’, the book sets out a programme for a new field of Production Studies (PS) for architecture and other disciplines.

Building Sites: Architecture, Labour, and Production Studies (2025, Routledge) is edited by Matt Davies, Will Thomson, Katie Lloyd Thomas and João Marcos de Almeida Lopes.

About the event

The editors will present the book and its production process. There will then be some short contributions on the impact of the project on their own research from a selection of the book’s authors including Dr. Nick Beech, Dr. Liam Ross, Dr Megha Chand Inglis and Dr Tijana Stevanović. Dr. Hugh Strange will chair, Dr. Alistair Cartwright will respond, followed by Q&A.

Useful links

This event has been organised by the UCL Institute of Advanced Studies in collaboration with Bartlett staff, Dr Albert Brenchat Aguilar, Dr Megha Chand Inglis and Dr Tijana Stevanović [in alphabetical order].

About the Speakers

Matt Davies

Reader in International Political Economy at Newcastle University

Matt Davies is also Professor Visitante at the International Relations Institute of the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). His work has engaged with cultural imperialism, precarity and unprotected workers in the international political economy, and popular culture and world politics. His current research focuses on urbanism and cities as spaces of world politics. (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8817-4376)

More about Matt Davies

Will Thomson

Research Associate at Newcastle University

Will Thomson is an anthropologist with a focus on the relations of design to labor in a global context, rural–urban migration, and Chinese contemporary social life. He spent two years on fieldwork at Chinese construction sites and in local design offices in west-central China from 2010 to 2012, with grants from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the US National Science Foundation, and the US Social Science Research Council. He moved to Newcastle in 2021 to join the TF/TK project as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. His current manuscript project, China Constructs, is under contract with MIT Press in the Labor and Technology series.

More about Will Thomson

Katie Lloyd Thomas

Visiting Professor at Newcastle University

Until 2025 she was Professor of Theory and History of Architecture at Newcastle University. Katie’s research is concerned with materiality, labour and technology, and their intersections with architectural concepts, practice and design, and with feminist practice and theory. Publications include Building Materials: Material theory and the architectural specification (Bloomsbury, 2021) and with Matt Davies, Will Thomson and João Marcos de Almeida Lopes Building Sites: Architecture, Labour, and Production Studies (Routledge, 2025). 

More about Katie Lloyd Thomas

Hugh Strange

Director at Hugh Strange Architects

Hugh Strange teaches at the London School of Architecture. His London-based practice is intentionally small and hands-on, making buildings with thought and care in a spirit of collaborative adventure. In 2025, his Hastings House project was shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling prize. In 2024 Hugh was awarded a doctorate at AHO, the Oslo School of Architecture and Design. His PhD, titled ‘Architecture at the Building Site’ examined the separation of design and construction, including case studies of William Lethaby, Walter Segal and Joseph Paxton.

Alistair Cartwright

Honorary research fellow at University of Liverpool

Alistair Cartwright is an organiser at Stop the War Coalition. His work focuses on the contested afterlives of domestic spaces during periods of social and physical reconstruction, with a particular interest in theories of rent (and practices of renting) and the politics of disasters. His forthcoming monograph (Routledge 2026) examines the history of private rented housing in London after the Second World War, showing how the capital's 'rented rooms' were key sites of intervention for the welfare state and a crucible of radical social change. His current research is about post-disaster reconstruction and shelter in Mauritius during the transition from British colony to independence.