Research Interests
Open to PhD applications in the field of;
- The design of housing
- Prefabrication in architecture
- Representations of architecture
- Designed urbanity
- Building heritage and conservation
- The architectures of industry and other forms of production
- The architectural and spatial histories of energy
- Architecture and the production of food
- PhDs by architectural design and practice
Public outreach & key achievements
In 2018, Professor Boyd was awarded a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship for his proposal 'Architecture and the Face of Coal: Mining and Modern Britain'. Published in 2022, this book investigates the production of enlightened and humane approaches to architecture throughout the twentieth century as a response to the extreme conditions associated with coal mining, a critical and strategic facet of the British economy.
A member of ICOMOS, he was also project-leader on a Getty Foundation Keeping it Modern grant (2018-21) which explored approaches to conservation and energy use in the award-winning St Brendan's Community School, Birr, designed by Peter and Mary Doyle in the 1970s.
In 2014, he was appointed joint curator/commissioner/designer of the Irish Pavilion, for the 14th Architecture Biennale, Venice 2014.
Following this, he assumed a similar role for 'Making Ireland Modern', a major exhibition touring the Republic of Ireland in 2016 as one of the key strands in the Irish Arts Council's 1916-2016 cultural programme.
Research students
| PhD Title | Curatorial Practice and Architecture (working title) |
| Name | Natalie Weadick (with RMIT University, AUS) |
| PhD Title | Architecture and the Bomb: Belfast and Beyond (working title) |
| Name | Stephanie Helm-Grovas |
| PhD Title | Photography and the architecture of Brutalism. Slums in the Sky: How Photography Killed the Desire for Mid-Century, Mass Social Housing in Britain. |
| Name | Sarah Churchill (with Drew University US) |
Alumni: Where are they now
| PhD Title | Invisibility, appropriation, subversion: British Army observations posts at the Shankill Falls Divide 1972 (2022) |
| Name | Karin Elliot |
| PhD Title | Repacking the Supermarket: Food Retail Evolution and Future (2021) |
| Name | Emma Campbell |
| PhD Title | Parisian poieses: architecture and the aesthetic of contemporary French poetry (2023) |
| Name | Lauren Quigley |
Discover More
- Faculty of Engineering and Physical Science
- School of Natural And Built Environment
- http://makingirelandmodern.ie