About

Anthony R Brand is an architectural theorist at the University of Auckland whose work explores phenomenology, embodiment, and situated cognition (how and why we feel the way we do and ways in which architecture can influence this). These themes were explored in his PhD thesis and later developed in detail within his first book, Touching Architecture: Affective Atmospheres and Embodied Encounters (2023). His forthcoming second book, Tracing Architecture: exploring the significance of our narrative lifeworlds (2027), examines the existential value of traces in design, construction, and inhabitation, centred around themes of authenticity, narrativity, and temporality. Recent work focuses on the intersection of AI, emerging technologies, and architectural pedagogy.

Position

Senior Lecturer in architecture history and theory, School of Architecture, Planning and Design, Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland. Co-Chair of the AI Teaching and Learning Sub-Committee, Faculty of Engineering and Design; previously Chair of the School’s AI Teaching and Learning Sub-Committee. AI Advisor and Ethics Advisor, School of Architecture, Planning and Design.

Expertise

• Architectural history, theory and criticism
• Phenomenology and atmospheres
• Embodied and 4EA cognition
• Environmental psychology, wellbeing and behavioural science
• AI and technology-enhanced learning in architectural education
• Studio pedagogy

Biography

BArch (Hons), 2006, and DipArch, 2009, at the University of Nottingham. The diploma thesis, Dissolving Architecture: making mead from sweetness and light, supervised by Jonathan Hale and Bradley Starkey, received an honourable mention in the 3DReid national student design competition (2009). Moved to New Zealand in 2009 and worked with Habitat for Humanity in Ōtara before joining the University of Auckland for doctoral research in 2011. The PhD (2017), Touching Architecture: A Felt Phenomenology of Affective Atmospheres and Embodied Encounters, supervised by Ross Jenner and Mike Linzey, was awarded the Faculty of Creative Arts and Industries Prize for Best Doctoral Thesis (2018). Architectural practice in the UK and New Zealand – DJD Architects (Worcester), RHDesign and Nigel Cook (Auckland), and Rowe Baetens Architecture (2017–2019) – preceded a return to the University as a full-time lecturer in 2019; Senior Lecturer since 2022.

Awards and recognition

• Faculty of Creative Arts and Industries Prize for Best Doctoral Thesis, 2018
• Nominee, Vice-Chancellor’s doctoral thesis award, 2018
• Finalist, AASA Education Prize for Early Career Academics, 2022
• Invited to the Society of Architectural Historians (USA) roundtable Conserving Built Space Through the Senses, 2022
• Invited chair, ADNZ webinar series Tech & the Future of Design (three webinars on AI and design), 2025
• Invited judge, Architectural Designers New Zealand (ADNZ), 2020

Service

• Peer reviewer, architecture theory book proposals, Routledge
• Peer reviewer: Interstices; Frontiers in Sustainability; ACSA 112th Annual Meeting (2024); GDI+, the International Conference of Green + Digital + Intelligent Built Environments (2025, 2026)
• External examiner, Master of Architecture theses: Victoria University of Wellington, Unitec, Auckland University of Technology (since 2020)
• Author, the School’s white paper on the ethical use of AI and large language models in architectural education
• Lead, Curriculum Framework Transformation for architecture: process-based assessment across all BAS and MArch(Prof) design courses
• Director of Design, 2023, and Associate Director of Design, 2021–2022: design teaching across four years of the BAS and MArch(Prof), some 500 students and 28 staff
• Design year coordinator, years 1–4
• Coordinator, Master of Architecture (Professional) thesis programme, 2024
• Member, University of Auckland Human Participants Ethics Committee (UAHPEC-B), 2020–2022
• Member, History and Theory Research Hub, Digital Research Hub and X-Hub

Teaching

Architectural history, theory and criticism, and design studio, at the University of Auckland since 2011.

Courses and studios

• ARCHHTC 237, History, Theory and Criticism (since 2019): a core course of 120–150 students a year, redesigned as a flipped, blended course with modules on gender and architecture, the climate crisis and Mātauranga Māori; ARCHHTC 236 (2018)
• ARCHHTC 704, Actual and Artificial Intelligence, elective seminar (current)
• ARCHDRC 704, Digital Reconstruction of Buildings, elective seminar (current)
• Design 6, Pacific Resilience (2024): a studio built around generative AI tools, presented at the University’s Learning Futures Community of Interest (2025) and featured in Architecture New Zealand (2025)
• ARCHGEGN 711, Paper Architecture, elective seminar (2020)
• Design 2, The Formal (2020)
• Design 3, Nomadic Dwellings: spatial explorations in inhabitation (2019)
• Design 4, Stonewalled: between a rock and a hard place (2019)
• Design 5, An Architecture of Deathcare (2015)
• Design 3, Home-making: atmosphere, intimacy, domicile (2014)
• Design 2, Hunger Games: crafting tasteful atmospheres (2013)
• Design 6 and Advanced Design 2, Off-Site Construction, with Peggy Deamer (2012)
• Design 5, Smart School–Smart Community: approaching the 2050 urban plan, with Susanne Hofmann (2012)
• Design 2 (2011)

Supervision

• Main supervisor: Esther Clifford, PhD (current)
• Doctoral co-supervision: Weian Chen, The Nascence of Presence: A Pilgrim’s Journey through the Sensuous in Architecture (with Andrew Douglas)
• Main supervisor of over twenty Master of Architecture (Professional) students since 2014, whose theses include Atmosphere of Music; Fabricating Topography; Architectural Synaesthesia; Rust in Peace: architecture of grief and catharsis; Dreamscapes for the Sleepless: remedying stress-induced insomnia through architecture; Habitual Inhabitation: revitalising the city through ritual
• Three summer research scholars (2020–2023), on blended and flipped learning in architecture

Teaching practice, featured by the University’s Teachwell

• Designing with AI: reimagining architectural education (2025)
• When student feedback stings (2025)
• Break the class silence with student response tools (2025)

Views expressed on this site are the author’s own and not those of the University of Auckland.