Sam Spurr is an architectural theorist and designer working across academia, installation art and curatorship. For the past decade Sam has taught across architecture and design and was founding director of the Interior and Spatial Design program at UTS. She holds a doctorate titled ‘Performative Architecture’ from UNSW. As part of the collective N she has curated exhibitions, public interviews and design projects about the impact of conversation on art, architecture and design. Sam has exhibited at the Moscow Biennale 2013, Sydney Biennale 2012, Storefront Gallery NYC (2012), the Prague Quadrennial 2011 and The Gwangju Design Biennale 2011, as well as co-curating the first SEAM Symposium (2009) on architecture, film and dance.
Sam Spurr's Latest contributions
A civilized urban conversation: Newcastle East End Stage 1
In a novel alliance between several practices, each team’s distinct design sensibility and autonomy was key, alongside a precise understanding of how each building would interact with its “siblings” and with the central public space connecting them.
Reconfiguring architecture’s relationship to Indigenous knowledge: 2019 National Architecture Conference
Attending the 2019 National Architecture Conference, Sam Spurr was struck by the way the question of collective agency in architecture was grounded in an urgent conversation about how the practice relates to Indigenous knowledge.
Ask the silly questions: Emma Williamson
Emma Williamson of CODA Studio on generosity, humility and architecture’s hidden heroes.
Uncritical regionalism and critical practice
After the buzz of the National Architecture Conference has faded, Ben Hewett and Sam Spurr investigate what discussions the annual event fostered and what possibilities it opened up.
Andrew Burns on culture as a landscape of ideas
Andrew Burns talks to Sam Spurr about architecture’s role in forming identity.
Parametric thinking: Trifolium by AR-MA
Trifolium by AR-MA is the second pavilion in the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation’s Fugitive Structures series.
Broached Retreat
Sam Spurr reviews the Broached Commissions exhibition in Beijing.
Exchange: Collaboration, Convergence, Conversations
A monograph on urban transformations by one of Australia’s largest practices, Hayball.
Affirmative yes – but definitive?
Sam Spurr reviews the 2013 Affirmative Architecture Symposium in Sydney.
WAF 2013: Lock, stock and barrel
Meeting of minds or too-expensive talkfest? Sam Spurr reviews the 2013 World Architecture Festival.
