A graduate of the Liverpool School of Architecture, she also holds an MSc in Conservation and Adaptation from the University of Central Lancashire.
She is a senior lecturer and teaches on the Architectural Technology and Architecture programme at undergraduate level and at masters level on the M.Sc. in Conservation and Adaption.
She is also a senior Fellow of the HEA
She has for the last 10 years taught on the B.Sc. (Hons) Architectural Technology Programme at UCLan, ensuring that the next generation entering the profession have a wide and diverse knowledge base and a thirst to continue learning. She is passionate about the importance of design detailing – believing that for a building to function well, so must its details.
The course was described by the then external examiner as ‘the best in the country’ and students from the programme have won awards both national and regional, most recently Darren Nelson won the CAIT AT Awards for Report 2018, for his dissertation on ‘In situ reinforcement of timber of beams in a conservation setting’
Her research areas lie within two areas:
First the impact that the building environment has on the health and wellbeing with a particular focus on the impact of sonic pollution and indoor air quality and how we might ‘heal’ the built environment.
The second lies in social enterprise/cooperatives and how these models might allow communities to better address their housing needs and requirements particulate within existing spaces and buildings that need to be adapted and/or retrofitted, and all within the context of a regenerative, restorative approach
Her practical background spans over 20 years, in architectural practices in the UK and Germany, as a freelance designer and photographer, in two languages. She worked as an Architect/ Architectural Technologist, and has a huge range of practice experience, at all stages of the design and construction phase, both in the UK and abroad. She has worked on a huge variety of projects, ranging from small domestic extensions in the Lake District to the redevelopment of a 42 hectare former steelwork site in the former East German city of Riesa.
She freelanced for a number of years and worked with a number of designers/academics and professionals on a number of project including a project looking at the space left over after the fall of the Berlin Wall, exploring the work of Halprin on the West Coast of America and studying the concept of cohousing groups in both Germany and the UK.
In addition to her architecture and research work, she is involved with a not for profit organisation, ACT for Housing, which aims to work with key anchor organisations in Lancashire to develop sustainable housing for local community groups.
