I am an architect, a traveller and a researcher. My current PhD thesis, undertaken at the University of Manchester, is on facilities for managing municipal solid waste. The primary question of my research concerns the principles how they operate, the real-world constraints they face, their industrial context, how they are planned and built, as well as any cultural value they bring as urban and infrastructural elements. The facilities that are of a particular interest are those used for Energy-from-Waste, Mechanical Biological Treatment, Anaerobic Digestion, Gasification and Pyrolysis, as well as plants that process the by-products of these processes. Further information can be viewed here and in the recent blog posts.
As part of my PhD I have been undertaking academic placements at KTH (Stockholm). I am part of the Chartered Institution of Waste Management (CIWM) on a student member basis.
I am also an architect qualified in the UK (ARB) and in France (Ordre des Architectes). I work as an architect on student residential projects at TP Bennett LLP, where I am also part of the Sustainability Focus Group.
My Mphil at Cambridge considered the Hospitality Architecture in West Africa. I investigated the hotel’s role in the city and ways to make it better suited for the region both physically and socially. Being both theoretical and propositional, my work consisted of a written research dissertation, as well as a design proposal for a phased hotel combined with a hospitality school, to be developed overtime by a Nigerian village community. In order to establish a thorough understanding of the situation on the ground and make a study of various precedents I undertook fieldwork trips to Nigeria, Ghana and Hong Kong in 2017. More information can be viewed here
Before Cambridge I completed my BSc in Architecture at the University of Bath, where my final project addressed the issues of throwaway culture, consumerism, social inequality and cultural ignorance by bringing the question of waste to the centre of people’s consciousness through making waste-processing infrastructure more articulated within the urban fabric. For more, click here
In addition to these academic experiences, I have participated in exchange programmes with the Technical University of Munich (2013-14) and the Chinese University of Hong Kong (2017), and worked at TP Bennett and Arkhenspaces, two architectural offices in London and in Paris. Before university I actively practiced as an artist which led me to participating in an international exhibition in Bruges, Belgium, in 2014 and working with artist Sergei Katran at Archstoyaniye 2012, an annual Russian art and architecture biennale. Prior to my studies in the UK I lived in Russia, where I originally come from.