Doucet, Isabelle, Professor

Professor Isabelle Doucet (she/her)

School of Architecture and Landscape

Professor of Architecture

i.doucet@sheffield.ac.uk

Arts Tower

Full contact details

Professor Isabelle Doucet
School of Architecture and Landscape
Arts Tower
Western Bank
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S10 2TN

Profile

I joined the School of Architecture and Landscape in February 2025 after having held a professor position at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden (2018-2024). Before then I was based at the Manchester Architecture Research Group (MARG) at the University of Manchester (2009-2018), following the completion of my PhD studies at Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands.

I have a longstanding research—and teaching— interest in the societal and environmental responsibilities of architects and urban designers, which I have studied through historical cases (with a focus on “after 1968”), theoretical revisiting, and through methods of inquiry. Located at the intersections with environmental humanities, feminist theory and historiography, my current and ongoing research centres (1) on expanded histories of architecture and activism after 1968 combining oral histories of women in architecture with the critical revisiting of emancipatory theories and practices from an intersectional perspective; (2) on (women as) role models in architecture; and (3) environmental (multi species) storytelling. I am currently preparing two book manuscripts: a research monograph offering an in-depth critical study of the portrayal of women as role models in architecture history, and, together with Hélène Frichot, an edited collection on environmental storytelling in architecture. I am the author of (Routledge 2015) and editor of (with Janina Gosseye, Jovis 2021) and (with New Janssens, Springer 2011). I have also guest-edited several thematic journal issues including the ” issue for Architectural Theory Review (with Hélène Frichot, 2018).

As a selected researcher for the Multidisciplinary Research Program “Architecture and/for the Environment” at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal (2018-2019), I focused on . I have also been a visiting scholar at Yale University (2022), University of Sydney (2018), University of Queensland (2017) and the Brussels Centre for Urban Studies (2015).

Currently I am a member of the Steering Group of the Architectural Humanities Research Association () and an advisory board member for the journals and . Until 2023, I was an editor for Architectural Histories, the journal of the European Architectural History Network.

Qualifications: PhD, Masters and Bachelor Degree in Architecture

Publications

Books

Doucet DI (2015) The Practice Turn in Architecture: Brussels after 1968. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd..

Edited books

Doucet I & Gosseye J (Ed.) (2021) Activism at Home. Architects Dwelling between Politics, Aesthetics, and Resistance. Jovis.
Doucet I & Janssens N (Ed.) (2011) Transdisciplinary Knowledge Production in Architecture and Urbanism. Towards Hybrid Modes of Inquiry. Springer.

Journal articles

Gosseye J & Doucet I (2024) . Fabrications, 34(1), 4-37.
Doucet I, Frichot H, Gosseye J & Stead N (2024) . Thresholds(52), 108-117.
Doucet I (2023) . The Journal of Architecture, 28(5), 805-824.
Doucet I (2019) . Architecture and Culture, 7(2), 179-196.
Doucet I (2019) Anticipating Fabulous Futures. E-Flux Architecture.
Doucet I (2019) Architectural Practice and Education “From the Inside Out”. Oase: tijdschrift voor architectuur(102), 91-103.
Doucet I & Frichot H (2018) . Architectural Theory Review, 22(1), 1-8.
Doucet I, Debaise D & Zitouni B (2018) . Architectural Theory Review, 22(1), 9-23.
Doucet I, Lange T, Hochhausl S & Et al. (2018) Architecture and the Environment. Architectural Histories, 6(1).
Doucet I (2017) De Belgische ‘counter’ episode 1965-1980. Stad en architectuur tussen denken, durven en doen. Stadsgeschiedenis, 12(1), 42-49.
Doucet I (2017) . Journal of Educational Administration and History, 49(1), 7-21.
Doucet I & Boano C (2016) Disruptive Design: on design gestures, breathing, and not-doing (published conversation). Candide: Journal for Architectural Knowledge(10).
Doucet I (2016) Architecture Wrestling the Social: The “Live” Project as a Site of Contestation. Candide: Journal for Architectural Knowledge(10), 12-40.
Doucet I (2014) . Architectural Theory Review, 19(1), 98-115.
Doucet I (2011) . Belgeo(1-2), 29-40.

Chapters

Doucet I (2022) Interspecies Encounters: Design (Hi)stories, Practices of Care, and Challenges In Förster K (Ed.), Environmental Histories of Architecture Canadian Centre for Architecture
Doucet I (2022) Bus Tour Across the UK In Colomina B, Galan IG, Kotsioris E & Meister A-M (Ed.), Radical Pedagogies (pp. 183-185). The MIT Press
Doucet I (2022) Drawing as Activism In Colomina B, Kotsioris E, Galan IG & Meister A-M (Ed.), Radical Pedagogies (pp. 104-105). The MIT Press
Doucet I (2022) Architectural Storytelling: A Space Between Critical Practice and Fragile Environments In Frichot H, Carbonell A, Frykholm H & Karami S (Ed.), Infrastructural Love; Caring for Our Architectural Support Systems (pp. 36-50). Birkhauser
Doucet I (2022) 1968 and Beyond: The urban struggle on trial? In Moritz E & Moser J (Ed.), Urban Ethics. Conflicts over the Good and Proper Life in Cities (pp. 130-143). Routledge
Doucet I (2021) Revisiting Environmental Learning: Cities, issues and bodies In Couchez E & Heynickx R (Ed.), Architectural Education Through Materiality: Pedagogies of 20th-Century Design (pp. 130-143). Routledge
Doucet I (2020) Entangled Histories. Architecture, Women, 1968 In Pech C & Andersson M (Ed.), ArkDes Research Symposium on Architectural History 2018 (pp. 116-125). Arkdes
Doucet I (2018) Understanding Social Engagement in Architecture: towards situated-embodied and critical accounts In Karim F (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to Architecture and Social Engagement (pp. 14-26). Routledge
Doucet I (2018) Tales of Cities as (Resistant) Practices In Grubbauer M & Shaw K (Ed.), Across Theory and Practice: Thinking through Urban Research (pp. 111-119). Jovis
Doucet I (2015) ARAU (Atelier de recherche et d’action urbaines): counter-projects In Borasi G (Ed.), The Other Architect Spector and Canadian Centre for Architecture
Doucet I (2013) Counter-projects and the postmodern user In Cupers K (Ed.), Use Matters. An Alternative History of Architecture (pp. 233-247). Routledge
Doucet I (2008) Brussels: The Soft Regeneration In Kaminer T, Berg & et al. (Ed.), Houses in Transformation, Interventions in European Gentrification (pp. 130-143). NAI

Book reviews

Doucet I (2019) Mai 68: L'architecture aussi!. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (JSAH), 78(3), 370-371.

Conference proceedings papers

Doucet I (2021) Tales of Cities as (Resistant) Practices (Reprint). APPROACHES AND METHODS IN ARCHITECTURAL RESEARCH, Vol. 1 (pp 15-24)
Doucet I, Gosseye J & Kockelkorn A (2019) From Le Droit à la Ville to Rechte Räume. Legacies and legends of the Movement for the Reconstruction of the European City.. Architecture and Democracy 1965-1989: Urban Renewal, Populism, and the Welfare State

Website content

Doucet I, Barnett R, Lambrou N, Yarina L & et al. Field Notes on Repair: 5.

Research group

Doctoral supervision

I am currently co-supervising two doctoral students: Soscha Monteiro De Jezus (first supervisor prof Janina Gosseye at TU Delft) and Elisabeth Peeters (first supervisor prof Bruno Notteboom at KU Leuven) and have previously (co)supervised five doctoral students to completion at The University of Manchester. I am currently also an advisory commission member for Eline Inghelbrecht (KU Leuven) and Pauline Fockedey (UC Louvain). I have acted as an external doctoral examiner for thirteen students at University College London, ETH Zurich, University of Sydney, Royal Institute of Technology KTH Stockholm, Konstfack Stockholm, Lund University, University of Amsterdam, Ghent University, Université Libre de Bruxelles, and Antwerp University.

I represented Chalmers at the board of the Swedish Architecture Research School called ResArc, which also involved co-organising a symposium at KTH Stockholm in 2023 resulting in the publication Towards the Future of Research Education in Architecture (edited by Catharina Gabrielsson). Within ResArc I developed and taught, in 2022-2023, the international PhD course “Situating Research: Approaches, Ethics, Collaborations, Writing”, involving students from architecture, landscape design, artistic research, arts history, and urban studies from five universities in Sweden (Chalmers, KTH, Konstfack, Malmö and Blekinge), Edinburgh University (UK), TU Delft (The Netherlands), and Aarhus University (Denmark).

Grants: “Green Participation. The Sociopolitics of Ecological Landscape Design.” Research Foundation Flanders (FWO)(Main applicant: Bruno Notteboom, KU Leuven, Belgium, 2021-2025).

“Women, Architecture, 1968.” Gender Initiative for Excellence (Genie) at Chalmers University of Technology (2021-2023).

“Women in Architecture Leadership.” (2020-2023) and “Women as Role Models.” (2024), Gender Initiative for Excellence (Genie) at Chalmers University of Technology.

“Counter-Projects: Revisiting the Radical Potential of Architecture 1965–1980.” Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts (Research grant, 2016-2017)

“Borders and Boundaries.” Institute for the Encouragement of Scientific Research and Innovation of Brussels (Prospective Research for Brussels grant, 2004-2007).