Sandra Kaji-O'Grady facts for kids
Sandra Kaji-O'Grady is an Australian expert in architecture and a teacher. She lives in Brisbane. She used to be a Professor of Architecture and the leader of the School of Architecture at the University of Queensland until 2018.
Her Work in Architecture
Sandra Kaji-O'Grady has played a big part in teaching architecture at universities in Australia. She was the leader of the school at University of Technology Sydney from 2005 to 2009. She also led the architecture program at the University of Sydney in 2011. Later, she became a Professor and the leader of the School of Architecture at the University of Queensland from 2013 to 2018. She left the University of Queensland in December 2020. Today, she helps guide what is published in several important magazines about architecture and design.
At the University of Sydney, Sandra Kaji-O'Grady left her role as Head of School. This happened after the dean, another leader, broke some rules. The dean had offered places to students from other universities if they changed their minds and came to Sydney University. This was against the rules about asking students to switch schools. Almost everyone in her department supported her in asking for the dean to leave his job.
In 2013, Sandra Kaji-O'Grady helped organize a big meeting for the Australian Institute of Architects. She worked with an architect named John de Manincor. The meeting was called "Material." It looked at how architects use new materials. It also discussed how materials affect politics, the environment, and technology. Kaji-O'Grady and De Manincor invited many different speakers. These included people who research robots, design with steel and concrete, or find new ways to use old materials, which is called upcycling. This meeting was also special because it made sure there were an equal number of male and female speakers. Kaji-O'Grady shared that they used a colorful chart to help them choose speakers. This chart helped them balance speakers by their topic, country, project size, and gender.
Her Research
Sandra Kaji-O'Grady is interested in modern laboratory buildings. She also studies how architecture, science, and art mixed together in the 1960s and 1970s.
She was also part of a research project that looked at fairness and diversity in Australian architecture. This project focused on women, work, and leadership. It was led by Naomi Stead from the University of Queensland. One important result of this research is a website called Parlour. This website shares research, ideas, and help for women in architecture in Australia. Kaji-O'Grady explains that the project started because fewer women stay in architecture and fewer reach top positions than men. Yet, some architecture firms had many more women than others. Sandra Kaji-O'Grady, through Parlour, has helped the architecture world in Australia. She has given tools to employers, employees, and industry groups to fix unfairness at work. For example, she helps with the informal ways people get promoted, which often favor men.
Kaji-O'Grady is also a member of the ATCH (Architecture Theory Criticism History) Research Centre at the University of Queensland.
Her Writing
Kaji-O'Grady has written many articles for both academic and popular magazines. Some of these include The Journal of Architecture, Journal of Architectural Education, Architecture Theory Review, and Architecture Australia. She made a big contribution to Australian architectural ideas with her book Conditions, Connections and Change: Reviewing Australian Architectural Theory 1880–2000. She wrote this book with Julie Willis. It looks at Australian architectural ideas from 1880 to 2000. She also helped edit the book Laboratory Lifestyles: The Construction of Scientific Fictions (2019) with Chris L. Smith and Russell Hughes. And she wrote LabOratory: Speaking of Science and Its Architecture (2019) with Chris L. Smith.
