Congratulations on the new job! Tell me a little bit about it.

Thank you! We’re doing a rotation system for this job. As an academic you take it on for three or four years. It’s about understanding what our educational research portfolio is and, also, what our academic community is. So there are three main aspects of what we're doing. I It's not about making a mark, it's about sharpening.think it's a good opportunity to shape a little bit of what we do, but the idea of the rotation is that we never get too comfortable. It's about moving forward. It's not about making a mark, it's about sharpening.

What are you sharpening exactly?

We are sharpening architecture in its expanded field. Firstly, we are unique in bringing courses that integrate looking at architecture alongside landscape. We’re all here together, but we are not really thinking about what that means in terms of configuration.

What does architecture with landscape mean?

What it means, I think, is that in landscape, one of the interesting things is that they deal a lot with time. We have a very different sense of a project's timescale. Architecture tends to work to the completion of a built idea or constructed form, and some sense of occupation. Look at the building here in Chambers Street, it was built in the 1860s and yet here we are 150 years later. We don't actually design for that kind of timescale even though that is the reality. It’s interesting to talk about alteration, it's an interesting topic to talk about how we might design differently over time.

Aside from timescale or lifespan, what of the environment?

The idea of the animate, non-animate, non-human seasons might all be part of what we design with. And, we can’t always control it, or there are different registers to think about when understanding what change or intervention is. It's these concerns that we're dealing with when we talk about the environment.

How do you balance traditional practice with the architecture and landscape as a whole?

I think from an architectural point of view; the landscape is interesting. From the landscape perspective, I think there has been a really interesting conversation about different design practices and expectations. Therefore, how you imagine and make, what tools you use, so if you are drawing or videoing or constructing some sort of laser cut model – what what questions are you asking and how might you do it from the position of both an architect and a landscape architect.questions are you asking and how might you do it from the position of both an architect and a landscape architect.

A lot of the landscape architects are really interested in how you work across scale, how you work with these different models and working with installations. We ambitiously talk about landscape and talk about the city in a broad way, and then talk about the architecture of it. I think landscape, which tends to be a more descriptive discipline, is very interested in that sense of intensity, of intensifying different parts of the design process. Whereas architects are interested, more and more, in time, in space, the more dynamic; not just the consequence of design but how you might do the process. Being an architect is actually quite different from the way it is conceptualised to legislated; to do this job for a particular time, to hand over the keys, and then your job’s done – it’s more about living with it. It’s that sense of architecture and landscape together which is really something that I’m very interested in. I’ve got this time to sharpen it up a bit, with what possibilities there are.

What about events to encourage dialogue?

We are going to have various events and conversations, we've got symposia entitled “The Place of Silence”, “Landscape Witness”, things like that, things that open up conversations.

What about wider thinking on what the school could be?

To understand a contemporary architecture school is to understand that it's not just for the people who are teaching and the students here now. It’s also the long duration of alumni, the visitors who we invite in from different countries, it's those dialogues that we have, so we can be an architecture school that is somewhere where knowledge is talked about constructively, it's not just taught or taken away from.we can be an architecture school that is somewhere where knowledge is talked about constructively, it's not just taught or taken away from. I think I'm interested in what it is that makes us that kind of school.

What of the personality of the school?

I’m being very naïve at the moment because I’m not too tired, which I will be in two years time. I genuinely do see opportunities for it, though. We've got excellent staff and students and there's some really good work going on. I think we've got a reticence about how we operate, which is a good thing and a bad thing: We are not a shouty architecture school, we are not a branded architecture school. We don't make sure we get the message across like some other UK schools. Personally, I feel comfortable with that because I love that sort of quiet, you know you can go somewhere where you’re going to find something really interesting but it’s away from the noise that you get in the “Look at me! Look at me!” architecture schools.

Hence the interview with international press…

I know! That's why I'm taking the opportunity. The reticence is a bit “Edinburgh” as well because actually there is a bit of ambition too, we want to be seen internationally!

Does the school have many international connections?

We’ve got some really interesting staff at the moment, people from the U.S., from Canada, we’ve got people from Spain, Portugal, Australia, England and I think that this is really interesting because those are a set of contacts and networks who gather together. We’ve also got visiting professors and fellows. Over the past 15 years, we’ve invited people, quite a lot of North Americans, quite a lot of Europeans, from India this year, interesting individuals. We’re not seeing these as an institutional connection but as a network of individuals.that’s the aspiration from some of our students, to find their own niche in slightly unexpected areas.

What about student intake?

Students come from all over the world, and it's a new thing for us to see ourselves as more of an international than a national school. We are a bit of both, and that's a moment where we need to begin to think, “What kind of international are we?” Because of the kind of architecture, we’re not sending people out to huge global practices. It's a bit like the people we tend to invite, they tend to be interesting thinkers, scholars, slightly maverick practitioners, possibly because that’s the aspiration from some of our students, to find their own niche in slightly unexpected areas.

What do most students go on to do after leaving school?

It’s a complete mixture. We have students that do go into practices, people who go out of architecture, some get involved in making, into more technical roles or furniture design. There have been a few graduates who’ve gone on to work in more humanitarian work, there is a real variety.

What kind of aspirations do you have for your students?

In terms of aspiration, I would see it as a success if 20 years down the line they are doing something really interesting. I'd be a bit disappointed if I hear 20 years later they are a director of a faceless, soulless, corporate practice.

Thank you Suzanne and good luck!