The teaching staff within the Architecture discipline are committed to providing students with an innovative, challenging and practical program. Comprised of both research-active academics and practicing architects, you will receive a high quality education with strong foundations in architectural studies that leaves you well equipped to secure professional employment and contribute to the long-term health of the built environment.
Professor Gordon Holden
Professor Gordon Holden is the foundation head of architecture at Griffith University. He was previously Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Design at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand and before that he was Head of Architecture, Interior and Industrial Design at QUT.
Professor Holden's teaching expertise ranges across several fields but mainly focuses on architectural and urban design history, theory and methods in architectural and urban design project design studios. His research includes sustainable urban design, guidelines for urban design and traditional settlements in Papua New Guinea.
Associate Professor Leigh Shutter
Associate Professor Shutter's architectural career has focused on integrated scholarship: an ongoing and active participation in the nexus between innovative research oriented practice and teaching. Prior to joining the program at Griffith he taught in the School of Design at QUT. That role included Course Coordinator, providing academic leadership and executive management, to the offshore Architecture program that QUT offered jointly with City University in Hong Kong. He has also taught at the University of Queensland and the Boston Architectural Centre.
His teaching focus at Griffith is in design, currently convening first year studios.
Associate Professor Andrew Leach
Associate Professor Andrew Leach joined the Griffith School of Environment in 2010. He has worked continuously in academia since 1999, having previously taught at the University of Queensland, Ghent University (Belgium), the Wellington Institute of Technology and Victoria University of Wellington (NZ) and having been a guest of numerous universities and institutes in Europe, North America and Australia. He specialises in the history and historiography of architecture, in which fields he is widely published. In 2010, Polity published his most recent book, What is Architectural History? for which Chinese and Turkish translations are under contract. Dr Leach leads the architectural history stream of Griffith's professional architecture program.
Dr Henry Skates
Dr Henry Skates is a practicing architect, educator, self-builder, sustainability enthusiast and BREEAM assessor. He obtained his professional degrees in architecture at the University of Dundee in Scotland and obtained a PhD in architecture at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.
He has worked in a number of practices in Scotland and Northern Ireland and is the author of the book Building Your Own Energy Efficient and Sustainable House. Henry has held lecturing positions at the University of Dundee, UNiversity of Ulster, Queens University Belfast and Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. He is currently employed as a senior lecturer with the Griffith School of Environment and maintains a consultancy role in his previous practice of Milligan Reside Larkin Ltd.
Ms Alexandra Brown
Ms Alexandra Brown combines her experience as a practicing architect with research interests in architectural history and theory to encourage students to develop skills across both practical and theoretical aspects of architectural work. Ms Brown's research projects to date have largely explored architecture's disciplinary status in relation to both aesthetic and wide socio-cultural and political contexts, adding a multi-disciplinary aspect to her studio and lecture-based teaching.
Her 2010-11 Summer studio course focused on giving students the opportunity to experiment with hand drawing and drafting techniques to enhance their design communication skills, resulting in a public exhibition of large-scale drawn work.