Emeritus Professor Sandra Kaji-O'Grady

Emeritus Professor

School of Architecture, Design and Planning
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology

Overview

Professor Sandra Kaji-O'Grady is an architectural educator, academic leader and researcher with a PhD in Philosophy from Monash University (2001) and professional architectural qualifications and experience. She led the design and delivering of a new progressive design education while Head of School at UTS (2005-2009) and in September 2013 commenced as Head of School and Dean of Architecture at the University of Queensland. She is committed to critical approaches to design learning and to preparing students for a radically volatile professional future.

Sandra's research is in the architectural humanties and seeks to understand the political and philosophical contexts for contemporary architecture. She has recently completed a project with Chris L. Smith on the architectural expression of contemporary science and its ideologies in laboratory buildings. This research was supported by the Australian Research Council, through the Discovery Grant ‘From Alchemist’s Den to Science City: Architecture and the Expression of Experimental Science’. Laboratory Lifestyles, the first of two major book outcomes from the study, examines the history, ambitions and and effects of the addition of gymnasia, cafes, and social spaces to scientific esearch campuses and will published by MIT Press in 2018. Life science laboratories also incorporate Animal Houses and our consideration of these has led to a new research project, in its early stages. This research will explore the ways in which buildings designed to house animals evidence and determine the relationships we have with non-human animals. Previous work has been published in leading journals including the Journal of Architecture, The Journal of Architectural Education, Architecture &, and le Journal Spéciale’Z. She has presented invited lectures and peer-reviewed conference papers in the USA, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, Finland, Amsterdam, France, Belgium, Germany, England and Scotland, where she was a Visiting Fellow at the University of Edinburgh (2012). Her own artwork investigating serial systems using pianola rolls and commercial paint samples has been exhibited in Singapore and Australia.

Sandra has been a member of the College of Experts of the Australian Research Council (2010-2011) and has reviewed submissions for several scholarly journals and sits on the editorial boards of Architecture and Culture, Studies in Material Thinking, Ardeth, and Architecture Theory Review. She is a reviewer for DrawingOn Journal and regularly contributes as a critic to Architecture Australia, Architecture Review Australia, Monument and Artichoke. Actively engaged with the architectural profession, she has written over fifty reviews for the design press and co-directed the AIA National Conference in 2013.

Research Interests

  • The Architecture of Animal-Human Relations
    The spatial organisation of animals and humans in cities and buildings has recently become a sub-theme of Animal-Human Studies through the intervention of geographers. My research builds on this emerging scholarship to examine the contributions made by architects in designing buildings to house animals across several sectors: zoos and sanctuaries; the pet industry; farming; and experimental science.
  • The Design of Contemporary Laboratory Buildings
    Laboratory buildings, especially in the life sciences, have become as expressive in their architectural strategies, and as expensive, as museums and galleries. They are also hoped to bring about important discoveries through acting upon the scientist, encouraging them to collaborate and be entrepreneurial. Examination of their aims and performance, along with their institutional and political context, and their funding and production, offers fascinating insights into architecture and science in neoliberal economies of knowledge work.

Research Impacts

An active contributor to the architectural profession, Kaji-O'Grady co-directed with architect John de Manincor the 2013 National Conference of the Australian Institute of Architects - the peak annual event for the architecture profession in Australia with an audience of over 1400. In parallel, Kaji-O'Grady and de Manincor edited a special issue of the professional Architecture Australia focused on questions of material, the conference theme. She has published over fifty reviews of buildings and exhibitions in the design press and has been a regular member of awards juries for the Australian Institute of Architects.

Kaji-O'Grady's research into the design of new facilities for scientific research is directly engaged with the profession. In 2007 this research was the subject of an ARC Linkage Grant with Industry Partner Woods Bagot and involved case study buildings by John Wardle Architects, DesignInc, Wilson Associates and LahzNimmo Architects. Her research into the expression of science in new laboratory buildings included analysis of buildings by Charles Correa, David Chipperfield, Stanton Williams, and others.

Qualifications

  • Doctor of Philosophy, Monash University
  • Postgraduate Diploma, Murdoch University
  • Masters (Coursework) of Architecture, University of Western Australia
  • Bachelor (Honours), University of Western Australia

Publications

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2017). The architecture of constraint and forgetting. The afterlives of Georges Perec. (pp. 171-188) edited by Rowan Wilken and Justin Clemens. Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra and Smith, Chris L. (2016). Laboratory architecture and the deep skin of science. Industries of architecture. (pp. 282-293) edited by Katie Lloyd Thomas, Tilo Amhoff and Nick Beech. Abingdon, Oxon, United Kingdom: Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group). doi: 10.4324/9781315670362

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2014). Laboratories of experimental science. The architecture of industry: changing paradigms in industrial building and planning. (pp. 109-134) edited by Mathew Aitchison. Farnham, Surrey, United Kingdom: Ashgate Publishing. doi: 10.4324/9781315612515-11

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Supervision

View all Supervision

Available Projects

  • This project examines the design of environments to house animals for purposes that range from companionship to species preservation, from entertainment to food. There are numerous topics to be pursued given the wide range of typologies, including zoos, sanctuaries. vivaria, veterinary clinics, pet boarding kennels, stables, farms and slaughterhouses. I am interested in historical and theoretical perspectives on the architecture of animals, and in mining the rich body of scholarship that constitutes the field of Animal Studies.

  • Peter Sloterdijk has argued that our relationship to air changed fundamentally with the gas wars of the early twentieth century and the advent of the air-conditioned building. This research project will draw from his arguments and other key theorists to study the myriad ways in which air and atmosphere have been of architectural concern—metaphorically and through environmental engineering—in the twentieth and twentieth centuries.

View all Available Projects

Publications

Featured Publications

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2017). The architecture of constraint and forgetting. The afterlives of Georges Perec. (pp. 171-188) edited by Rowan Wilken and Justin Clemens. Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra and Smith, Chris L. (2016). Laboratory architecture and the deep skin of science. Industries of architecture. (pp. 282-293) edited by Katie Lloyd Thomas, Tilo Amhoff and Nick Beech. Abingdon, Oxon, United Kingdom: Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group). doi: 10.4324/9781315670362

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2014). Laboratories of experimental science. The architecture of industry: changing paradigms in industrial building and planning. (pp. 109-134) edited by Mathew Aitchison. Farnham, Surrey, United Kingdom: Ashgate Publishing. doi: 10.4324/9781315612515-11

Book

Book Chapter

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2018). Gender and anonymous peer review. Architecture and feminisms: ecologies, economies, technologies. (pp. 132-139) edited by Helene Frichot, Catharina Gabrielsson and Helen Runting. New York, NY: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9780203729717

  • Hughes, Russell, Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra and Smith, Chris L. (2018). Lifestyle science: its origins, precepts, and consequences. Laboratory lifestyles: the construction of scientific fictions. edited by Sandra Kaji-O'Grady, Chris L. Smith and Russell Hughes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States: The MIT Press.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra, Smith, Chris L. and Hughes, Russell (2018). Preface. Laboratory lifestyles: the construction of scientific fictions . (pp. xvii-xxvi) edited by Sandra Kaji-O'Grady, Chris L. Smith and Russell Hughes. Cambridge, United Kingdom: MIT Press.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2018). Scientific dining. Laboratory lifestyles: the construction of scientific fictions. (pp. 123-145) edited by Sandra Kaji-O'Grady, Chris L. Smith and Russell Hughes. Cambridge, MA USA: The MIT Press.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2017). The architecture of constraint and forgetting. The afterlives of Georges Perec. (pp. 171-188) edited by Rowan Wilken and Justin Clemens. Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2016). Accounting for Kairuz. Dismantled. (pp. 164-187) edited by Eduardo Kairuz. Fitzroy, Australia: Uro Publications.

  • Kaji-O’Grady, Sandra (2016). Building knowledge. This building likes me. (pp. 218-219) Fisherman's Bend, VIC Australia: Thames and Hudson.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra and Smith, Chris L. (2016). Laboratory architecture and the deep skin of science. Industries of architecture. (pp. 282-293) edited by Katie Lloyd Thomas, Tilo Amhoff and Nick Beech. Abingdon, Oxon, United Kingdom: Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group). doi: 10.4324/9781315670362

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2014). Laboratories of experimental science. The architecture of industry: changing paradigms in industrial building and planning. (pp. 109-134) edited by Mathew Aitchison. Farnham, Surrey, United Kingdom: Ashgate Publishing. doi: 10.4324/9781315612515-11

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra and Smitheram, J. (2012). Critical Utopia: Site of Reversible Density, Yoro. Critical tools : International colloquium on architecture and cities #3. (pp. 115-126) edited by Hilde Heynen, Jean-Louis Genard and Tahl Kaminer. Bruxelles, Belgium: La Lettre Volee.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2012). Formalism and forms of practice. The SAGE Handbook of Architectural Theory. (pp. 152-165) edited by C. Greig Crysler, Stephen Cairns and Hilde Heynen. London, United Kingdom: Sage Publications. doi: 10.4135/9781446201756.n10

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2011). Seriature. Architecture and series. (pp. 6-9) edited by Dorian Wiszniewski. Edinburgh, United Kingdom: Architecture, School of Arts Culture and Environment, University of Edinburgh.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2010). From theory to practice: 39 opinions. Creativity, design and education: theories, positions and challenges. (pp. 79-82) edited by Anthony Williams, Michael J. Ostwald and Hedda Haugen Askland. Sydney, NSW, Australia: Australian Learning & Teaching Council.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2009). Public art and audience reception: theatricality and fiction. Back to the city. Strategies for informal urban design: collaboration between artists and architects. (pp. 108-113) edited by Steffen Lehman. Ostfildern, Germany: Hatje Cantz.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2009). Serial techniques in the arts: general ambitions and particular manifestations. Architecture, disciplinarity and the arts. (pp. 123-134) edited by John P. Macarthur and Andrew Leach. Ghent, Belgium: A & S Books (University of Ghent).

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2008). Designing a practice: the emergence of a multi-office global practice. Cox Architects and Planners 1960-2010: three eras. (pp. 34-41) edited by Philip Sutton Cox. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Images Publishing.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2006). Architectural models: literally and metaphorically. Public #1 : spatial tactics. (pp. 284-291) edited by Nik Karalis, Steven Cornwell, Ross Donaldson, David Tregoning and Lucy Moloney. South Melbourne, VIC Australia: Woods Bagot Research Press.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2006). Untitled. Alex Selenitsch: Open and Closed. (pp. *-*) Burwood, VIC, Australia: ICON Museum of Art, Deakin University.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2005). Public art and crime. Absolutely public : crossover: art and architecture. (pp. 50-55) edited by Steffen Lehman. Mulgrave, VIC Australia: The Images Publishing Group Pty Ltd.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2002). Op Art in the abyss of design. Good vibrations: the legacy of Op Art in Australia. (pp. 16-19) Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Heide Museum of Modern Art.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2000). The serial underside of structuralism: Boulez, Levi-Strauss, Eco, Eisenman and Fujii. Re-framing architecture: theory, science and myth. (pp. 87-100) edited by Michael J. Ostwald and R. John Moore. Sydney, NSW, Australia: Archadia Press.

Journal Article

Conference Publication

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra and Smith, Chris L. (2015). Unquiet darkness: institutions, information and dissimulation at the cold spring harbour laboratory.. SAHANZ 2015: Architecture, Institutions and Change, Sydney, Australia, 7-10 July 2015. Sydney, Australia: SAHANZ.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2014). Translating and representing bioscience through architecture. Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand (SAHANZ) Annual Conference, Auckland, New Zealand, 2-5 July 2014. Gold Coast, QLD, Australia: SAHANZ and Unitec Press.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2012). Collaboration and transparency in the architecture of contemporary science. Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand (SAHANZ) Annual Conference, Launceston, Tasmania, 5-8 July 2012. Launceston, Tasmania: Society of Architectural Historians - Australia & New Zealand (SAHANZ).

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2011). Environment bubbles: architecture, medicine and media. Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand (SAHANZ) Annual Conference, Brisbane, Australia, 7-10 July 2011. Brisbane, Australia: Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand (SAHANZ).

  • Russell, Adam, King, Simeon, Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra and Edwards, Deborah (2010). Mapping Ultimo: Sydney for sustainable tourism. Urban Design Research: Method and Applications, Birmingham, United Kingdom, 3-4 December 2009. Birmingham, United Kingdom: Birmingham City University.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2008). Challenges for architectural history and criticism: the super-sized office and the transdisciplinary studio. Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand (SAHANZ) Annual Conference, Geelong, VIC, Australia, 3-6 July 2008. Geelong, VIC, Australia: Deakin University Press.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2008). Unknown. CV08: Future Visions: RAIA National Conference, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 11 April 2008.

  • Margalit, Harry, Heneghan, Tom, Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra and Ostwald, Michael (2007). Panel 2. Heads of architecture: designing architecture education. International Conference on Design Education (ConnectED2007), Sydney, NSW, Australia, 11 July 2007.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2007). The Solipsism of Serial Arts. Symposium on Systems Research in the Arts and Humanities, Baden-Baden, Germany, July 29-Aug 4, 2007. Tecumseh, Canada: International Institute for Advanced Studies in Systems Research and Cybernetics.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2007). The dramatisation of 'eco-technologies' in recent high-rise towers. 4th International Conference of the Association of Architecture Schools of Australasia: Techniques and Technology, Transfer and Transformation, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 27-29 September, 2007. Sydney, Australia: Association of Architecture Schools of Australasia.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2007). The solipsism of serial arts. Collective Choreography of Space: Modelling Digital Co-Presence in a Public Area, Baden-Baden, Germany, 3 July - 1 August 2007. Tecumseh, Canada: The International Institute for Advanced Studies in Systems Research and Cybernetics.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2006). Larrikins and landscape: the quest to be the most Australian city. UNAustralia: Cultural Studies Association of Australasia Annual Conference, Canberra, ACT, Australia, 6-8 December 2006. Canberra, ACT, Australia:

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2006). Mimics and the maximised city. 15th Biennale of Sydney 2006: Zones of Contact. June Symposium: Biennales, Cosmopolitanism and Locality, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 9-10 June 2006.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2006). Mimics: art, architecture and the look of commerce. SAHANZ 2006: 23rd Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, Fremantle, WA, Australia, 29 September-2 October 2006. Fremantle, WA, Australia: SAHANZ: Society of Architectural Historians, Australia New Zealand.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2006). The pragmatics of Gehry's gesture: properties and procedures. The 32nd AAH Annual Conference: 'Contents. Discontents. Malcontents', Leeds, UK, 5-7 April, 2006. Leeds, UK: University of Leeds.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2005). Architecture as performance art: the collaboration between Rosalie Goldberg and Bernard Tschumi. Third International Conference of the Association of Architecture Schools of Australasia, Brisbane, QLD, Australia, 28-30 September 2005. Brisbane, QLD, Australia: Association of Architecture Schools of Australasia.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2005). The London Conceptualists: architecture and conceptual art in the 1970s. Repenser les limites: l'architecture a travers l'espace, le temps et les disciplines, Paris, France, 31 August - 3 September 2005. Paris, France: Institut National d'Historie de I'art (INHA).

  • Sandra Kaji-O'Grady (2004). A thousand words: conceptual art and architecture. The 1970s: Designing Futures, Community and Technology in Architecture and Urban Design, International Symposium, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, 23 September 2004. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: The University of Melbourne.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2004). Architecture and the future in the philosophical writings of Virilio and Flusser. CongressCATH 2004: The Architecture of Philosophy/The Philosophy of Architecture, Bradford, United Kingdom, 9-11 July 2004.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2004). The look of information: conceptual art, computers and architecture in the 1970s. SAHANZ 2004: 21st Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, 26-29 September, 2004. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2003). Constrictive procedures in architectural design: the Oulipian example. Second International Conference of the Association of Architecture Schools of Australasia (AASA), Melbourne, VIC, Australia, 2003. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Association of Architecture Schools of Australasia (AASA).

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2003). Divergent accounts of architectural progress: Virilio and war, Flusser and the factory. 20th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand: SAHANZ Progress 2003, Sydney, Australia, 3-6 October 2003. Sydney, Australia: Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2003). Hiromi Fujii and serialism, contribution and confusion: architecture and the influence of other fields of inquiry. 91st ACSA International Conference, Helsinki, Finland, 27-30 July 2003. Washington, DC, United States: ACSA Press.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2002). From stroll garden to stumble park: mapping Japan at site of reversible destiny. Third International Symposium of the Centre for Asian and Middle Eastern Architecture, The Univeristy of Adelaide, 4-6 July 2002. Sydney, Australia: UTSePress.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2002). Serialism in the architectural experiments of the 1960s. International Conference on the Research of Modern Architecture, Jyvaskyla, Finland, 30 August-1 September 2002. Jyvaskyla, Finland: Alvar Aalto Academy.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2001). Authenticity and eclecticism in contemporary Japanese architecture. The 2nd Savannah Symposium: Authenticity in Architecture, Savannah, GA, USA, 15-17 February, 2001. Department of Architectural History, Savannah College of Art and Design: Savannah, GA, USA.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2001). The aesthetics of meat: countering Deleuze's Bacon. Conducting Bodies: Affect, Sensation and Memory, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 20-22 July 2001. Sydney, NSW, Australia: Art Gallery of New South Wales.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2000). Derrida's "countersignature": Levinas, Titus-Carmel and Tschumi. SAHANZ 2000: 17th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia & New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand, 13-17 November, 2000. Wellington, New Zealand: SAHANZ: Society of Architectural Historians, Australia & New Zealand.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (2000). Speculating on architectural models. Architecture + Education 2000, Sydney , Australia, June 2000. Sydney, NSW, Australia: Faculty of Architecture Design and Planning, The University of Sydney.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (1999). Temporality in Soler's Suite sans fins. Thresholds: 16th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand, Launceston, TAS, Australia, 28th September - 1st October 1999. Launceston, TAS, Australia: SAHANZ.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (1998). Architectural serialism. SAHANZ 1998: 15th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, 28 September-1 October 1998. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (1998). The children's museum. University and Heritage, Melbourne and Geelong, VIC, Australia, 4-8 October 1998. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: UNESCO Forum.

  • Kaji-O'Grady, Sandra (1995). Yellow: color and cowardice in the contemporary Australian city. Australian and New Zealand Communication Association Conference 95: Framing Communication: Exclusions, Edges and Cores. ANZCA 1995, Perth, WA, Australia, 5-7 July, 1995. ANZCA, Western Australia: Edith Cowan University, Western Australia.

Edited Outputs

Other Outputs

PhD and MPhil Supervision

Current Supervision

Possible Research Projects

Note for students: The possible research projects listed on this page may not be comprehensive or up to date. Always feel free to contact the staff for more information, and also with your own research ideas.

  • This project examines the design of environments to house animals for purposes that range from companionship to species preservation, from entertainment to food. There are numerous topics to be pursued given the wide range of typologies, including zoos, sanctuaries. vivaria, veterinary clinics, pet boarding kennels, stables, farms and slaughterhouses. I am interested in historical and theoretical perspectives on the architecture of animals, and in mining the rich body of scholarship that constitutes the field of Animal Studies.

  • Peter Sloterdijk has argued that our relationship to air changed fundamentally with the gas wars of the early twentieth century and the advent of the air-conditioned building. This research project will draw from his arguments and other key theorists to study the myriad ways in which air and atmosphere have been of architectural concern—metaphorically and through environmental engineering—in the twentieth and twentieth centuries.