Dr Cameron McEwan

Associate Professor

School: Architecture and Built Environment

Short bio

Cameron McEwan is an architectural theorist and educator, Associate Professor and Head of Subject for Architecture at Northumbria University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and director of the AE Foundation. His research focuses on the relationship between typology, representation, and subjectivity to develop a critical architecture for the Anthropocene. His books include Analogical City (punctum, 2024) and as co-editor, Accounts (with Samuel Penn, Pelinu, 2019). With Andreas Lechner he guest-edited the Peripheries–Peripherocene issue of The Journal of Architecture (2026). McEwan has lectured and exhibited at the AA London, The Cooper Union New York, TU Graz, and the Venice Architecture Biennale.

Extended bio

Cameron McEwan is an architectural theorist and educator. He is Associate Professor and Head of Subject for Architecture at Northumbria University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and director of the AE Foundation, an independent research institute for architecture and education founded in 2011. Cameron’s research focuses on the relationship between typology, representation, and subjectivity to develop a critical architecture for the Anthropocene, pursued through close-reading, close-drawing, and close-writing.

Cameron’s book Analogical City (punctum, 2024), published open access, theorises Aldo Rossi’s neglected idea of analogical cities in dialogue with contemporary political theory and critical environmental humanities. It has been reviewed in publications including Archidose, Archined, arq, and GAM. It is also included in the Close Reading Archive, a cross-disciplinary bibliography of scholarship on close reading compiled at Rhodes College by Scott Newstok. With Andreas Lechner, McEwan guest co-edited the Peripheries–Peripherocene special issue of The Journal of Architecture (2026), which includes conversations with Keller Easterling and with Diana Agrest and Mario Gandelsonas. McEwan and Lechner co-lead the international Peripheries network. Cameron’s writing appears in Architecture and Culture, Archnet-IJAR, arq, Drawing On, GAM, Journal of Architectural Education, stoà, and elsewhere.

Cameron’s drawings have been exhibited at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale for the Scotland+Venice Project, The Lighthouse Glasgow, the Royal Scottish Academy, and Taubman College. His solo exhibition Tracing Rossi was shown at Stallan-Brand, Glasgow. Cameron has lectured and been a guest critic at the AA London, The Cooper Union New York, IUAV Venice, and TU Graz, TU Berlin, University of Strathclyde, and Mackintosh School of Architecture.

For McEwan, teaching and research are a hybrid practice. At the University of Dundee he co-led, with Lorens Holm, the Masters-level design research unit rooms+cities [2013–2017], exploring the relationship between room and city, and between subject and territory, using perspective, site plan, and montage as critical tools. rooms+cities work was published in arq, MONU and elsewhere. Cameron’s Year 3 atelier at Northumbria, fabric-object, extends that project. fabric-object is a type that is continuous with the urban fabric and its edge conditions yet articulates a distinctive urban presence. Its subtext is the relation between individual and collective, and the task of imagining new forms of collective life as cities expand into the landscape of the Anthropocene. Cameron’s recent writing on pedagogy includes “Architectural Pedagogy for the Anthropocene” in Archnet-IJAR (2023), “The School as a Critical Project” in stoà (2026), and “The Periphery as a Pedagogical Project” (with Shaun Young) in the Durham University journal ETLHE.

McEwan is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He was previously Head of Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion at Northumbria, and a Design Research Group co-lead. At the University of Central Lancashire he led the Architectural Humanities research cluster and was REF2021 Research Environment Lead for UoA32, which Architecture was submitted. He holds a PhD in history and theory of architecture from the University of Dundee Geddes Institute for Urban Research.

Email Cameron

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

Cameron’s research focuses on the status of architecture as a critical project under the conditions of the Anthropocene. Current projects include Peripherocene, a term to name the urban periphery as the Anthropocene’s defining spatial condition, developed from an eponymous Northumbria University funded project (2023), which investigated the relationship between Anthropocene forces and the production of peripheral urban space. With Andreas Lechner (TU Graz), Cameron co-leads the international Peripheries network. McEwan and Lechner guest edited the Peripheries–Peripherocene special issue of The Journal of Architecture (2026), which includes their conversations with Keller Easterling and with Diana Agrest and Mario Gandelsonas.

Cameron’s latest book is Analogical City (punctum, 2024). It argues for architecture’s status as a critical project through a close reading of Aldo Rossi’s neglected idea of analogical cities. The book theorises the analogical city for today by placing it in dialogue with contemporary political theories of the city, subjectivity, and the critical strand of the environmental humanities. punctum books is a diamond open access press, and Analogical City can be downloaded free. It has been reviewed in arq by Nadia Bertolino, by Hans van der Heijden in Archined, Fabrizia Berlingieri in GAM, Johnny Rodger in The Drouth and in Archidose and World-Architects by John Hill. It is included in the Close Reading Archive, a curated cross-disciplinary bibliography of scholarship on close reading compiled by Scott Newstok at Rhodes College. Richard Sennett reproduced Cameron’s photograph of Rossi’s school at Fagnano Olona in Democracy and Urban Form (2024).

Cameron’s work is published internationally in peer-reviewed and critical practice journals including Archnet-IJAR, Architecture and Culture, arq: Architectural Research Quarterly, Drawing On, GAM–Graz Architecture Magazine, Journal of Architectural Education, Lo Squaderno, MONU, Scroope: Cambridge Architecture Journal, stoà, and Outsiders for the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale.

His editorial projects include Accounts (Pelinu, 2019) with Samuel Penn; Architecture and Collective Life, a special double issue of Architecture and Culture (Taylor & Francis, 2020), with Lorens Holm; Hybrid Practices, a special issue of Archnet-IJAR (Emerald, 2026), with Andreas Lechner; and the Peripheries–Peripherocene special issue of The Journal of Architecture (RIBA; Routledge, 2026), with Lechner. With Nadia Bertolino and Cristina Mattiucci, Cameron edited Care and Critical Action, a special issue of the open access journal Lo Squaderno (Professionaldreamers, 2023).

Cameron’s work employs drawing and montage, as method, as pedagogy, as a critical practice equivalent to, but different, from writing. Cameron’s drawings have been exhibited at The Lighthouse Glasgow, the Royal Scottish Academy Edinburgh, the Ludoteca at the Venice Biennale, and Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. His solo exhibition Tracing Rossi was shown at Stallan-Brand gallery, Glasgow. Recent drawing work includes Recomposition of Norgas House shown at Vane, Gateshead (2025).

Key Publications

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Analogical Newcastle: the periphery as a critical project, McEwan, C., Wojewoda, J. 2026, In: Journal of Architecture
Drawing Out the Imaginal Periphery: Towards a Theory, McEwan, C., Lechner, A. 2 Oct 2026, In: Architecture and Culture
Infrastructure space and the global periphery: Keller Easterling in conversation with Andreas Lechner and Cameron McEwan, Easterling, K., McEwan, C., Lechner, A. 2026, In: Journal of Architecture
Introduction: Peripheries–Peripherocene, McEwan, C., Lechner, A. 2026, In: Journal of Architecture
Nature is the unconscious of the periphery: Diana Agrest and Mario Gandelsonas in conversation with Cameron McEwan and Andreas Lechner, Agrest, D., Gandelsonas, M., McEwan, C., Lechner, A. 2026, In: Journal of Architecture
Palazzo-Typologie und Entwurfsmethodik: Palazzo Typology and Design Method, McEwan, C. 1 Jun 2026, Synergies: Building Collaborations in Architectural Research, Graz, Germany, Jovis Verlag
The periphery as a critical project: towards an architectural pedagogy for the Anthropocene, McEwan, C. 18 Mar 2026, In: Archnet-IJAR: International Journal of Architectural Research
The Periphery as a Pedagogical Project: Thinking-through-making and experiential learning in architectural education, McEwan, C., Young, S. 25 Sep 2026, In: Enhancing Teaching and Learning in Higher Education
The School as a Critical Project: Teaching for troubled times, McEwan, C. 19 Jul 2026, In: stoà. Tools for Architectural Design Pedagogies
Two Overdrawings: Tracing Aldo Rossi, McEwan, C. 25 Jul 2026, In: Studio Note

Professional Activity

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Visiting an external academic institution: Studio Niro 2026
Examination: External Examination Board, London South Bank University 2026
Visiting an external academic institution: Custom Lane 2026
Examination: External Examiner, London South Bank University 2026
Visiting an external academic institution: Technische Universität Berlin 2026
Invited talk: Transect: The City as a Thinking Machine 2026
Organising a conference, workshop, ...: Urban Periphery: TRANSECT I 2026
Examination: External Examining, London South Bank University School of Architecture 2026
Examination: External Examining, University of Plymouth School of Architecture 2026
Visiting an external academic institution: University of Strathclyde 2026

PGR Supervision

Ziana Namboori Madathil Old Hall Cares – An architectural study to analyse care practices in a British intentional community Start Date: 01/02/2023

Further Information

Cameron holds a PhD in History and Theory of Architecture from the University of Dundee Geddes Institute for Urban Research, with a thesis on Aldo Rossi’s analogical city. He graduated with a Master of Architecture with distinction from the University of Dundee School of Architecture (2009), with awards for Best Project in a Civic Context and a RIAS Drawing Award. Cameron’s research has been supported by the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (Research Fellowship, 2018), the Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities (2014), the Geddes Institute for Urban Research, University of Dundee (Geddes Fellow for Doctoral Studies, 2009–14), and the Marchus Trust (Peripheries–Peripherocene exhibition, 2026). He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA).

Cameron’s pedagogy has developed as a continuous project. At the University of Dundee he co-led, with Lorens Holm, the Masters-level design research unit rooms+cities [2013–2017]. The unit explored the relationship between room and city, and between subject and territory, through perspective, site plan, and montage. Work from the unit was published in arq and MONU, including McEwan and Holm’s “Analogical Urbanism” (MONU 29, 2018). His theory syllabus Critical & Cultural Context (University of Central Lancashire, 2021) is held in the Theory’s Curriculum syllabi library of The Architecture Exchange, an international collection of architectural theory teaching. At Northumbria, his Year 3 atelier fabric-object extends the rooms+cities project towards the individual and the collective and towards hybrid forms in the city-periphery region. His writing on pedagogy includes “The periphery as a critical project: towards an architectural pedagogy for the Anthropocene” (Archnet-IJAR, 2026), “The Periphery as a Pedagogical Project,” with Shaun Young (ETLHE, 2026), and “The School as a Critical Project: Teaching for troubled times” (stoà, 2026).

Cameron has led design studio and theory programmes at Northumbria University, the University of Central Lancashire, Dundee School of Architecture, Edinburgh Napier University School of Arts, Wuhan School of Architecture, and Hong Kong VTC Architecture. He has been an invited speaker at IUAV Venice, TU Dresden, TU Graz, Manchester School of Architecture, the Mackintosh School of Architecture, the AA London, The Cooper Union New York, and elsewhere.

He sits on the Editorial Review Boards of the Quartile 1 journal Archnet-IJAR and of Drawing On, an online, open access, peer-reviewed journal publishing architectural research conducted by design. He is a member of the UKRI College of Reviewers and the Standing Conference of Schools of Architecture (SCOSA). He serves as external examiner at London South Bank University and the University of Plymouth.

Qualifications