Dr Rui Aristides Lebre

Dr. Lebre is an architect and academic focused on exploring ethnographically informed methods to examine the social and environmental effects of spatial production. He is currently lecturer and Course Leader for BA (Hons) Architecture at the Department of Architecture and Built Environment (ABE). As a designer, Dr. Lebre has worked as a solo practitioner and collectively, co-founding in 2014 the design group Til collective, exploring the potential of participatory and environmentally inclusive design approaches.

His recent research involved the historical study of colonial and post-colonial African landscapes across Guinea-Bissau, Angola and Mozambique, examining the social, spatial and environmental legacies of forced resettlement. This research has explored interdisciplinary entanglements between Human Geography, Architectural and Social History and Material Anthropology, leading to a research associate two-year sojourn at the University of Oxford’s African Studies Centre.

His current interests involve exploring human-environment dialectics and interspecies design approaches, as well as continue developing socio-spatial histories that attempt to place design practices within their webs of political meaning.