Dr Sarah Breen Lovett

Dr Sarah Breen Lovett is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Architecture and Built Environment, engaging in practice-led, industry-collaborating and socially-engaged research projects. 

Across all of these modes of engagement, Sarah focuses on interconnectivity between self, community, built and landscaped environments through a combination of earth building, prefabricated architecture, wellbeing and eco-social practices.

Earth Building

Working with industry and peak bodies, Sarah is driven to research the use of earth materials in the building industry for more regenerative architecture.

Sarah is a committee member of the Earth Building Association of Australia and incorporates earth building into teaching in architecture, industry led research and advocacy activities.

Sarah is particularly passionate about how earth building is on one hand a sustainable, low carbon material, which can be used to support planetary wellbeing;  and on the other hand has many health benefits that can be used for the development of personal wellbeing.

Sarah recently received a Fellowship from the Irish Arts Council to investigate the relationship between Earth Building and Prefabricated Architecture.

Prefabricated Architecture

Sarah's architectural research began following her architectural and interior design career which spanned 10 years on numerous residential, commercial, and industrial projects in Sydney and London.

Experience with Industry-collaborating pre-fabricated research has been with a number of Tier 1-3 Industry Partners, Peak bodies, Government bodies, Educational Institutions and SME’s.

This has been through her roles as:  Engagement & Education Leader at Building 4.0 CRC, Lecturer and Lab Manger at Future Building Initiative, MADA Monash University, as well as Post-doctoral Researcher and Lab Manager of the Innovation in Applied Design Lab at The University of Sydney.

All of these industry collaborating research organisations focused on making architecture more efficient through prefabricated architecture.

Wellbeing

Sarah is driven to explore how earth building has many wellbeing benefits. This ranges from the building of DIY earth buildings to inhabiting buildings made from earth.

Sarah is exploring ways to extend this research through collaboration and has recently co-published on this topic in a recent book chapter "Routledge Handbook of Architecture, Urban Space and Politics, Vol II: Ecology, Social Participation and Marginalities”.

Previously, Sarah’s PhD was called "Expanded Architectural Awareness: The Intersection of Expanded Cinema and Architecture."  This investigated our habitual and haptic relationships to architecture through moving image installation.

This research was focused on drawing mindfulness awareness to our self in relationship to architecture and place.

Sarah exhibited and curated many exhibitions of her own practice and curated exhibitions in relation to this area of research nationally and internationally.

Eco-Social Projects & Curation

Eco-Social research projects have been carried out through the creation and curation of many regional contemporary art exhibitions and performances focused on environmental and socially engaged practices.

These were held on Gadigal, Wiradjuri, Dharug and Gundungurra Countries.

The results of many of these collaborations can be heard on her podcast hereness.org.

Sarah has also co-curated and co-directed many other exhibitions and conferences around practice-led and Industry-collaborated research through: the first Annual Design Research Conference at The University of Sydney, Open House in Melbourne, and Building 4.0 CRC Annual Showcase and Annual Conferences and CRC exhibitions at various Industry Partner venues, and in Parliament House Canberra.

Publications

Sarah’s publications include "Expanded Architecture: Temporal Formal", published with the Bauhaus Foundation Dessau, by AADR; and a chapters in “ "Flow: Between Interior and Landscape” published by Bloomsbury;  "Inter and Transdisciplinary Relationships in Architecture" by AITNER; "Mediated Identities in the Futures of Place: Emerging Practices and Spatial Cultures" and “Effective Architectures” by Springer; "Architecture Filmmaking" by Intellect, as well as articles in Architectural Science Review,  Scroope Cambridge Architecture Journal, and the Journal of Architecture and Related Arts; as well as forthcoming "Routledge Handbook of Architecture, Urban Space and Politics, Vol II: Ecology, Social Participation and Marginalities”.