Dr Ashley Mason (she/her)

BA (Hons.) MArch (Dist.) PhD

School of Architecture and Landscape

Research Associate: Culture and Climate Change

Profile picture of Dr Ashley Mason
Profile picture of Profile picture of Dr Ashley Mason
Ashley.Mason@sheffield.ac.uk

Full contact details

Dr Ashley Mason
School of Architecture and Landscape
Arts Tower
Western Bank
Sheffield
S10 2TN
Profile

I am a researcher engaged with marginalised matters of site within architecture through creative-critical + textual-spatial methods. This research supports my current role within the Culture + Climate Change initiative, exploring cultural framings of environmental change + interdisciplinary climate futures + their impacts.

Qualifications
  • BA (Hons.)
  • MArch (Dist.)
  • PhD in Architecture by Creative Practice
Research interests

Climate Heritage // Climate Narratives // Climate Futures

I hold a PhD in Architecture by Creative Practice, Towards a Paracontextual Practice* (*With Footnotes to 'Parallel of Life and Art') (Newcastle University, 2019). Through creative-critical + textual-spatial methods, this thesis attended to the marginal phenomena of seemingly ‘empty’ sites — craters of extraction, demolition, or impact — asking how such para- elements might be accounted for + thereby how architecture might be informed by matters usually cast aside, or erased from view. This paracontextual practice is feminist + interdisciplinary – committed to care, support + repair; indebted to activism, art, landscape + literature.

Most recently, I have been seeking to progress this research towards collaborative + collective action, alongside expanding the notion of 'empty' sites to address issues of meanwhile vacancy + the associated marginalised phenomena of adaptive heritage reuse.


Previous research projects include: - Making Space / Keeping Space / Extending Space: Building the Impacts of the Sunderland Cooperative Heritage Lab (PI, with Loes Veldpaus, Martin Hulse + John Pendlebury; Newcastle University, 2023) - OpenHeritage (led by Loes Veldpaus, Martin Hulse + John Pendlebury; Newcastle University, 2022) (https://openheritage.eu/high-street-sunderland-great-britain/) - Creative Practice Inquiry in Architecture (co-edited with Adam Sharr; Routledge, 2022).

Publications

Edited books

Journal articles

Chapters

Theses / Dissertations

  • Mason A Towards a Paracontextual Practice* (*With Footnotes to 'Parallel of Life and Art'). RIS download Bibtex download

Other

Research group
Teaching interests
  • Interdisciplinary: engaging with creative-critical + textual-spatial practices; drawing from activism, art, landscape + literature.
  • Feminist: promoting collaborative production, reciprocal learning + the confronting of power; attending to marginalised issues + all of the support structures of architecture with care.
Professional activities and memberships
  • Editorial Board Member, field