Associate Professor Sam Spurr

Associate Professor

School of Architecture and Built Environment (Architecture)

Email:sam.spurr@newcastle.edu.au
Phone:(02) 4921 6655

Career Summary

Biography

Sam Spurr is an architectural theorist, critic and designer. Her current research on Mining Ideology and Coal Capitalism, examines the agency of architecture to make legible the complex forces at play in the age of the Anthropocene. Through this research Sam is exploring feminist theories of care and collective political subjectivity, ecological systems and indigenous cosmologies in the Australian context of Country.

Sam has focused her attention over the last five years on the agency of architecture and the need for disciplinary transformation in a rapidly changing contemporary world. This was the central focus for the 2016 Australian Institute of Architects National Conference, How Soon is Now? which she co-curated with Ben Hewett (Deputy Government Architect NSW) and Cameron Bruhn (Dean of Architecture, University of Queensland).

Sam is a co-founder of the collective group N, where the topic of conversation and its impact on art, architecture, and design has been unpicked and entangled through various modes that include exhibitions, symposia, studios, and projects. Her doctorate titled Performative Architectures completed in 2008 looked at how strategies from performance could be imported into digital design processes. This interest in performativity as an emergent and relational form of engagement continues today.

Sam has taught in Architecture, Design and Fine Arts faculties since 2001 and has been regularly invited as a guest critic, external examiner, doctoral assessor and curriculum reviewer.

She has had extensive international experience, completing her doctoral research with a DAAD scholarship in Berlin and presenting studios, workshops and exhibitions at international design and art biennales around the world.

Qualifications

Doctor of Philosophy, University of New South Wales

Keywords

Architecture Design
Architecture Theory
Design Research
Extraction/ Mining
Integrated Strategic Design
New Materialist Philosophy
Performance Theory

Fields of Research

Code	Description	Percentage
330102	Architectural design	100

Professional Experience

UON Appointment

Title	Organisation / Department
Associate Professor	University of Newcastle School of Architecture and Built Environment Australia

Academic appointment

Dates	Title	Organisation / Department
15/6/2015 - 1/1/2019	Senior Lecturer	The University of New South Wales Art and Design Australia
2/6/2008 - 1/1/2013	Senior Lecturer	University of Technology Sydney Design, Architecture and the Built Environment Australia

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Publications

For publications that are currently unpublished or in-press, details are shown in italics.

Chapter (4 outputs)

Year

Citation

Altmetrics

Link

2020

Spurr S, Kairuz E, 'OPEN-CUT (DATA) MINING: Multi-scalar complexity and critical spatial practices', Critical Practices in Architecture: the Unexamined, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne,UK (2020)

2020

Spurr S, 'Activism: Architecture and the Community', MMXX Two Decades of Architecture in Australia, Thames Hudson, 27 October 2020 (2020)

2018

Spurr S, Burns D, 'How to be a good witness: The architecture curator', The Routledge Companion to Criticality in Art, Architecture, and Design, Routledge, Abingdon, Ox 71-91 (2018) [C1]

DOI	10.4324/9781315623412-6

2013

Spurr S, Lahoud A, 'Architecture of the Aftermath', Visions and Revisions Performance, Memory, Trauma, Museum Tusculanum Press, Copenhagen 199-213 (2013)

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Journal article (5 outputs)

Year

Citation

Altmetrics

Link

2015

Spurr S, 'Problems of Scale and Translation A Design Project in 8 Acts', INFLEXIONS-A JOURNAL FOR RESEARCH CREATION, 274-278 (2015)

2013

Spurr S, Kwok E, 'Skywalking in Hong Kong: Disrupting flows in the consumerist wonderland', Revista Lusofona de Arquitectura e Educacao, 8-9 387-406 (2013)

2012

Filmer A, Hanh R, Gazzola P, Scott-Mitchell M, Spurr S, 'Re-viewing the PQ: Responses to the 2011 Prague Quadrennial of performance design and space', Australasian Drama Studies, 61 156-174 (2012)

2010

Spurr S, 'After the event: Speculative projects in the aftermath', Architectural Design, 80 50-57 (2010)

Working on speculative architectural projects in the aftermath of traumatic events requires both fearlessness and sensitivity on the part of the designer. Samantha Spurr describes... [more]

Working on speculative architectural projects in the aftermath of traumatic events requires both fearlessness and sensitivity on the part of the designer. Samantha Spurr describes how architecture studios organised by the University of Technology, Sydney, held in Shenzhen, Berlin and Beirut, have brought students into direct contact with these issues and fragile sites. © 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

DOI	10.1002/ad.1133

2009

Spurr S, 'Drawing the body in architecture', Architectural Theory Review, 14 322-332 (2009)

The assumed presence of the body in architecture has conventionally allowed for its absence in the architectural drawing, a reliance on the occasional smudge or representational s... [more]

The assumed presence of the body in architecture has conventionally allowed for its absence in the architectural drawing, a reliance on the occasional smudge or representational squiggle to denote people. Living bodies are an aspect that comes post-construction, that must "fit in" to what has been designed. Today architectural representation is immersed in rapid change and with the growth of computational drawing systems and virtual environments the question of the body is magnified. © 2009 Taylor & Francis.

DOI	10.1080/13264820903341670
Citations	Scopus - 6

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Conference (1 outputs)

Year	Citation	Altmetrics	Link
2018	Spurr S, Kairuz E, 'Open Cut (DATA) Mining; Multi-Scalar Complexity and Critical Spatial Practice', Critical Practice in an Age of Complexity, conference proceedings, Arizona (2018)

Creative Work (1 outputs)

Year	Citation	Altmetrics	Link
2023	Spurr S, Kairuz E, Fossil Fables, Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney University, Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney University (2023)

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Grants and Funding

Summary

Number of grants	2
Total funding	$71,146

Click on a grant title below to expand the full details for that specific grant.

20232 grants / $71,146

Master Planning Research Project at Djarragun College$68,090

Funding body: Djarragun College

Funding body	Djarragun College
Project Team	Doctor Marcus Jefferies, Associate Professor Liz Cameron, Associate Professor Sam Spurr, Associate Professor Kim Maund, Mr Cameron Beard, Doctor Buddhini Ginigaddara Appuhamilage, Professor Sue Anne Ware
Scheme	Research Grant
Role	Investigator
Funding Start	2023
Funding Finish	2023
GNo	G2300249
Type Of Funding	C3200 – Aust Not-for Profit
Category	3200
UON	Y

Coal Stories$3,056

Funding body: University of Sydney

Funding body	University of Sydney
Project Team	Associate Professor Sam Spurr, Doctor Eduardo Kairuz
Scheme	Research Project
Role	Lead
Funding Start	2023
Funding Finish	2023
GNo	G2300748
Type Of Funding	Scheme excluded from IGS
Category	EXCL
UON	Y

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Research Supervision

Number of supervisions

Completed1

Current4

Current Supervision

Commenced	Level of Study	Research Title	Program	Supervisor Type
2024	PhD	What Additional Knowledge about the Bunya Mountain Travelling Routes, Songlines and Events is Held by Indigenous Elders?	PhD (Architecture), College of Engineering, Science and Environment, The University of Newcastle	Principal Supervisor
2021	PhD	Ritual Cartographies - Mapping Social Attitudes to Death and Dying	PhD (Architecture), College of Engineering, Science and Environment, The University of Newcastle	Principal Supervisor
2021	PhD	Lessons from the Counterculture: Interior Architecture for Altered Perceptions	PhD (Architecture), College of Engineering, Science and Environment, The University of Newcastle	Principal Supervisor
2020	PhD	Mapping Perceptual Worlds: Looping Biosemiotic Enactivism and Neuroaesthetics	PhD (Architecture), College of Engineering, Science and Environment, The University of Newcastle	Principal Supervisor

Past Supervision

Year	Level of Study	Research Title	Program	Supervisor Type
2023	PhD	Empowering Communities through Autonomous Vehicles: A Decentralised Framework for Equitable Integration in Urban Environments	PhD (Architecture), College of Engineering, Science and Environment, The University of Newcastle	Principal Supervisor

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