Sebastian Messer

Assistant Professor

School: Architecture and Built Environment

Sebastian studied architecture at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow School of Art, at the UCL Bartlett School of Architecture, and took his professional examination at the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, Newcastle University. Following this, he worked full-time in architectural practice while also teaching part-time at Birmingham City, Newcastle, and Northumbria Universities before joining Northumbria University full-time as a Senior Lecturer.

Sebastian has been an External Examiner at La Facultad de Arquitectura, Urbanismo y Artes (FAUA-UNI), Lima, Peru (2016), and a visiting academic in the departments of architecture at the University of Sydney and Deakin University, Australia (2021). He shares the RIBA North East council role of Advocate for Education and Research with Matthew Margetts (EDable Architecture), and he represents architecture in the Northumbria Practice Research Group.

His recent works have been in collaboration with artist, Jessica Dolby (BALTIC Centre of Contemporary Art, 2021), and with Steve Newby, fullblOwn Ltd., and architect Taylor Grindley (Kielder Art & Architecture, ongoing).

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Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

Sebastian’s teaching and research are collaborative and interdisciplinary. His PhD, the first in Practice Research submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and Environment, drew on 10 year’s participatory work with groups of young people about their uses of The City, in collaboration with Mike Jeffries (Geography, Northumbria University), Jon Swords (University of York), Christine Egan-Fowler (Newcastle Royal Grammar School), the Holy Biscuit Gallery/ Shieldfield Art Works, as well as numerous curators and artistic directors, artists, past and current MArch students, arts and heritage organisations, and schools in the North East of England.

Sebastian co-founded archiGRAD to undertake ‘live’ and self-instigated projects in the wake of the 2008 Atlantic Banking Crisis. Between 2010 and 2013 he mentored 120+ graduates from architecture and related disciplines in 30 projects.

His research is concerned with Spatial Practices, both the role of the architecture profession and the ‘lived’ experience of the everyday; narrative design; design fictions and imaginaries; and Practice Research. He defines his own career role as an architect whose mode of practise currently is principally through academia.

MArch students’ dissertations Sebastian has supervised are concerned with the Right to the City; the nature of heritage; ruins and ruination; science fiction, dystopias, and imaginaries; and often use participatory and visual research methods.

Sebastian has supervised four PhDs – one to completion as second supervisor, and two as principal supervisor are ongoing. He welcomes PhD applications for both Practice Research and by dissertation.

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Documenting practice research: constraints and opportunities, Messer, S. 4 Mar 2025, In: Journal of Engineering Design
A Space of Their Own: A case study advocating appropriation of the domestic interior for well-being, Sweeney, E., Messer, S. 23 Feb 2023, Interiors in the Era of Covid-19, London, Bloomsbury
Review of areas of research capability in Architecture at Newcastle and Northumbria Universities for the RIBA NE, Messer, S. 13 Dec 2022
The Space Between [us], Messer, S. 19 May 2021
Tethered Cloud: Hydroforming a Monocoque, Messer, S. 22 Jan 2020
Mapping the City: participatory mapping with young people, Swords, J., Jeffries, M., East, H., Messer, S. 1 Nov 2019, In: Geography
Citizen Planners: Mapping The Future City, Messer, S. 29 May 2018
"Where does Facebook live?" Mapping identities in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, Messer, S., Swords, J., Jeffries, M. 4 Sep 2017, Architecture Connects, London, UK, Oxford Brookes University

Professional Activity

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Hosting an academic visitor: Victoria Allen 2025
Participating in a conference, workshop, ...: Architecture 101 2023
Participating in a conference, workshop, ...: Architecture 101 2023
Organising a conference, workshop, ...: Empowered Bodies 2023
Organising a conference, workshop, ...: Northumbria Practice Research Group Symposium 2023
Visiting an external academic institution: Deakin University 2023
Visiting an external academic institution: University of Sydney 2023

PGR Supervision

Eliza Sweeney Building Worlds, Building Selves: Reconceptualising Spatial Practices as Restorative Process Start Date: 01/10/2021
Timothy Ingleby Economy, Efficiency and Elegance in an Extreme Environment: Practice-based approaches to surface structure construction Start Date: 10/01/2025
Alan Hathaway Towards a Neu Merz: instrumentalising Kurt Schwitters’ use of collage, assemblage and abstraction as a new technique informing future, progressive and sustainable architecture in the North of England Start Date: 01/10/2025