Dr Samuel Holden
Lecturer in Architecture at the Department of Arts and Humanities, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
Sam is an early career researcher at Manchester School of Architecture. He completed his PhD in 2022 at the University of Manchester, titled “Land, Materials, and Construction Site: Decommodification Through Alternative Construction”. He draws influence from urban geography, diverse economy, and Dialectics to deploy historical and participatory activist design methods. Through this, his research explores the architectural left, both contemporary and historical.
He holds an MArch from Manchester School of Architecture, where he has worked as both research assistant and associate, and now works as a lecturer. Sam’s research strongly influences his pedagogy.
His current research focusses on analysing the left’s response to neoliberalism, this includes a critique of social architecture, defining non-monetary modes of construction, and situating Sheffield City Council’s in the 1980s.
Link
Contradictions in Urban Commons and Crisis
Economic, social, and political crises are manifestations of bourgeois society attempting to overcome itself, these are sublated into new understandings of capitalism. In these moments we can observe that this sublation is supported by the left through commons. My work is a spatial and temporal critique of urban commons and crises in capitalism. I explore the efficacy of the commons as they are appropriated in moments of crisis, a critique of Inclusive Cities from the position of Inclusive Cities.
Relevant Projects
- The Limits of Social Architecture
- Deconstructing Circularity – Building with Waste
- Design For Life
- Sheffield Music Factory: The Legacy of Red Tape Studios
- Contradictions in Urban Commons and Crisis.
