Anthony is an architect and researcher, having trained at Cardiff University, the University of Westminster and the Architectural Association. During his MArch at Westminster he received the Banister Fletcher Prize for his dissertation ‘The Production of Space in Protest, Law, and Police Action: London, winter 2010-2011’, which analysed spaces produced during a series of student-led demonstrations by conceiving them architecturally as ‘scenes’. Through a developed understanding of the social production of space in urban environments, the research examined the contradictions that occur in and between the legal representations of space, the spatial practices of the police and protestors, in their interaction and through associated acts of civil disobedience — exploring how urban public space is produced through these dual realms. The research connected the construction of spatial boundaries (through contest) and the production of political subjectivities, describing how the political and juridical are transformed in different ways in each protest site.
Anthony previously worked at muf architecture/art, leading public space projects in London and has been an associate at Architecture Sans Frontieres-UK, undertaking practical research in Ghana and London. He is also a visiting lecturer in the department, teaching an undergraduate design studio.
For his MONASS PhD work, Anthony proposes exploring ways in which processes of rapid urbanisation and accompanying expedient practices of occupying public and private space, describe possibilities for an alternative, ludic, and expressive urbanism. By focusing on the form and production of urban culture that develops in the intersection of formal policy ambitions, extreme weather events, informal development and competing models of globalisation — the project aims to understand how these ever unfinished socio-natural hybrids form an alternative basis for urban development policy, and offer possible approaches to co-habiting cities with increasingly unpredictable weather events.
Follow Anthony on twitter at @anthonypowis