About
My research bridges architectural history, cultural history and social history. I draw on visual and material culture, oral history and archival analysis of records such as valuation lists and rent tribunals to track the contested occupation, adaptation and re-use of built spaces over time. My PhD and 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 a key site of intervention for the welfare state and a crucible of radical social change. Expanding on a longstanding interest in the 'afterlives' of buildings, landscapes and places, my current research explores the architecture and politics of post-disaster reconstruction in Mauritius during the transition from British colony to independence. This work examines the connection between grassroots spatial practices and expert-led planning, involving some of the same personalities who shaped the housing futures of postwar London.
Before joining Liverpool School of Architecture as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Paul Mellon Centre and Development Manager at Open City, an architectural education charity dedicated to making London's built environment more open and accessible.
I have written on topics such as the aesthetics of the ‘un-ideal home’, subdivision in private rented housing, and the role of rent tribunals as spaces of resistance for publications including the London Journal, Twentieth Century British History, Architectural Histories and Jacobin. A recent historical materialist account disaster thinking and reconstruction in the writings of Viollet-le-Duc appears in the edited collection 'Struggles in the Concrete' (Birkhauser 2025).
Alongside academic work, I am an experienced fundraiser specialising in trusts and foundations, having working for various charities focused on the built environment and other fields.