Naomi Stead facts for kids

Naomi Stead is an expert in architecture who lives in Melbourne, Australia. She studies and writes about buildings and how people use them. Currently, she helps lead a special group at RMIT University that encourages new ideas and projects across different creative fields. Her goal is to find ways for design to help people and the planet.

Her Early Life and Studies

Naomi Stead was born in February 1975 and grew up in Adelaide, South Australia. She went to the Louise Laybourne School of Architecture at the University of South Australia. She finished her architecture degree with top honors in 1998. Later, in 2004, she earned her PhD from The University of Queensland. Her PhD research was about museums and their buildings.

What She Does: Her Academic Career

Naomi Stead started her teaching and research journey at the University of Technology Sydney in 2001. She then became a research expert at the ATCH (Architecture Theory Criticism History) center at the University of Queensland in 2009. She moved up to become a senior research fellow there. In 2015, she became an Associate Professor at the University of Queensland's School of Architecture.

In 2017, Stead joined Monash University's Department of Architecture. She was even the head of the department from 2018 to 2020. In 2022, she moved to RMIT University. There, she helps lead a group that brings together different design and creative areas. Her job is to help people work together on research that makes a big difference. This research aims to benefit people and the environment.

Stead has also worked as a visiting researcher in other countries. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Sweden and an Honorary Visiting Scholar in Belgium. In 2022, she was a visiting fellow in the Netherlands.

Naomi Stead's research looks at many interesting topics. She studies:

• How people write about and criticize architecture.
• How architects and buildings are shown in movies and TV.
• The tools and objects found in an architect's office.
• How to make sure men and women are treated fairly in architecture.
• The role of women in architecture.
• How walking around cities can be an artistic way to see them.
• How architects and students can stay healthy and happy at work.

Helping Women in Architecture

Naomi Stead started and led a big project called "Equity and Diversity in the Australian Architecture Profession: Women, Work and Leadership." This project, which ran from 2011 to 2014, was funded by the Australian Research Council. Eight researchers worked on it, including Naomi Stead, Karen Burns, and Justine Clark.

Their main goal was to understand why fewer women hold top jobs in architecture in Australia. They wanted to find ways to change this. The project led to many important writings. It also helped create a group called Parlour: women, equity, architecture. This group works to support women in architecture. Thanks to this project, new guides and policies were made to help create fairer workplaces.

Making Work Better for Architects

Stead also leads another important project called "Architectural Work Cultures: Professional identity, education and wellbeing." This project started in 2020 and is also funded by the Australian Research Council. It is often called the "Wellbeing of Architects project."

This three-year project brings together researchers, teachers, and architecture firms. They are studying how working in architecture affects people's mental health and happiness. It's the first big study in Australia to look at this topic in detail. The project aims to create helpful tools and resources. These will help architects and architecture students feel better and healthier in their work and studies.

Sharing Her Knowledge

Naomi Stead shares her knowledge in many ways. She was an expert member of a national committee for gender fairness. This committee was part of the Australian Institute of Architects. She has also edited important academic journals. These include Culture Unbound and Architectural Theory Review.

She was also part of the main committee for the Society of Architectural Historians of Australia and New Zealand (SAHANZ). She was even elected as the President of SAHANZ from 2017 to 2019.

Stead has also helped organize many conferences. These are big meetings where people share ideas. Some of the conferences she helped organize include:

• The Art of Drying: Practices and Aesthetics symposium in 2015.
• Transform: Altering the Future of Architecture in 2013.
• Writing Architecture II in 2010.
• Writing Architecture in 2009.

Naomi Stead often gives talks at public events about architecture. She also does radio interviews to share her ideas.

Cool Exhibitions She Curated

Naomi Stead has helped create several interesting exhibitions about architecture.

• 2015. Portraits of Practice: At Work in Architecture, Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney. This exhibition showed what it's like to work in architecture.
• 2015. Hung Out to Dry: Space, memory, and domestic laundry practices, University of Queensland Art Museum. This exhibition explored laundry practices at home.
• 2010. Documentation: The Visual Sociology of Architects, at a national conference in Sydney. This showed how architects are seen in pictures.
• 2009. Mapping Sydney: Experimental Cartography and the Imagined City, at UTS. This exhibition looked at creative maps of Sydney.

Awards and Recognition

Naomi Stead has received many awards for her work.

• 2015. She was shortlisted for a big award from the Royal Institute of British Architects. This was for the Parlour Guides to Equitable Practice.
• 2015. She received the Adrian Ashton Prize for Parlour: Women, Equity, Architecture.
• 2015. Parlour also won the Bates Smart Award for Architecture in the Media.
• 2015. She was shortlisted to be the Creative Director for the Australian Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale of Architecture. This was for a project called ParlourLIVE!
• 2008. She won the Adrian Ashton Prize for Architectural Writing.

See also

• Parlour: women, equity, architecture