Rachel Sara
Professor Rachel Sara is Oscar Naddermier Professor of Architecture at Birmingham City University. She holds a PhD in Architecture Education from the University of Sheffield (2004) and is an experienced research project lead and collaborator around community participation and co-creation, spatial agency, sustainable and regenerative design (university campus, pocket parks and city neighbourhoods).
Her research centres on the relationship between architecture, health and wellbeing, alongside "other" forms of architectural practice — specifically examining transdisciplinary architecture practices through collaborations between architecture and dance, co-design, and hands-on, community-based architectural activism. At BCU she co-leads the Urban Cultures research cluster, and is co-founder and an editorial committee member of Charrette, the journal of the Association of Architecture Educators.
Prior to joining BCU in 2019, she worked at University of the West of England, Bristol, where she introduced the hands-on-bristol project, bringing live community-based projects into the architecture curriculum. At BCU she has continued this trajectory of pedagogic innovation, including introducing the research-activist Extinction Rebellion Architecture studio 2019-2026.
Rachel was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in 2020, recognising a career-long commitment to inclusive and civically engaged architecture education. Her practice is underpinned by a desire to support a diverse range of students into the architecture profession, promoting more supportive and inclusive models of education that generate civic agency, through championing live projects, her feminist manifesto, and work on "the crit." She has significant experience leading architecture education nationally and internationally, including teaching new lecturers in architecture, leading masters programmes, and acting as link tutor for courses in Sri Lanka and Hong Kong.
She has published widely in journals including CoDesign, Architecture, Architectural Design, Archnet-IJAR, Journal of Engineering, Design and Technology, Charrette and Health Promotion International.
She is currently developing a number of European and UKRI research grants with Birmingham City Council, international and national partners.