Paul Ring

Associate Professor Paul Ring joined the University in September 2005, with specialisms are interior architecture, adaptive reuse and creative pedagogy, informed by an established design practice and exercised through teaching and practice-based research. Paul was Head of Subject for Architecture within the Department of Architecture & Built Environment (2018 to 2025) and was formerly the Faculty of Engineering & Environment's Director of Review, Approvals and Academic Portfolio (2014 – 2018). He is the former secretary and a current member of Interior Educators (IE), SCOSA (Council of Heads of Schools of Architecture) and its Teaching Excellence Awards Committee, and the European Association for Architectural Education (EAAE), through which he contributes to the education of Architecture and Interior Architecture internationally. Paul leads pedagogic partnership activity with cultural and heritage organisations, including the National Trust and Newcastle City Council's Creative Central Newcastle, developing strategy on experiential, authentic and project-based learning. He was a contributing author of the QAA Benchmark Statement for Architecture (2025) to influence architectural pedagogy, nationally.

He is the author of the BA(Hons), PG Cert (ARB Part 1) and MA Interior Architecture programmes, establishing a platform of interior and adaptive reuse pedagogy at Northumbria. The creative field of interiors are central to his academic practice, including published work on pedagogies for interiors and adaptive reuse. He is an experienced external examiner, examining at Kingston School of Art, Regents, Salford, UCA, Edinburgh School of Architecture and Manchester Metropolitan Universities.

Paul's research spans the interior, creative reuse and building adaptation, developing research, academic and partnership activity around the adaptation of heritage spaces, with a focus on authenticity and absence within the interior and heritage alteration as containers of memories. He is Editor of the Interior Educators Journal, IE: Studio, which he reestablished (2025) to platform research practice in the field. He submitted research by design portfolios and an Impact Case Study to REF2021, authoring work on creative partnerships (the National Trust, Newcastle City Council), alternative approaches to heritage spaces and the interpretative characteristics of heritage adaptation. He is a member of the Design Research Group and the international Research Network READ.ADAPT.REUSE: Reading and transforming the As Found (2024–2029), a transnational project coordinated by Hasselt University (Belgium), involving 15 European universities and funded by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO). Paul is currently supervising a PhD on Interpretative Adaptation and Reuse as a Methodology for Heritage Building Rehabilitation and Continuity and was co-convenor of the Interior Educators: Practice 2024 International Conference (A. Couture & P. Ring; Nov 2024).

He was awarded Scottish Interior Designer of the Year (1996) and has worked collaboratively in studio with artists, sculptors and designers on a wide range of projects, including architectural competitions and urban interventions, interior design, furniture and art installations as practice-based research.