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Matthew Soules
Associate Professor
Biography
Matthew Soules is an architect and urbanist who teaches design studios and history/theory seminars. He is a licensed architect and the director of Matthew Soules Architecture. In addition to teaching at UBC he has been Visiting Associate Professor at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and Visiting Faculty at SCI-Arc in Los Angeles.
Matthew’s current research focuses on contemporary capitalism and architecture. His book, Icebergs, Zombies, and the Ultra Thin: Architecture and Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century (Princeton Architectural Press, 2021), examines the rise of finance capitalism and its effect on architecture. From the cavernous underground “iceberg” homes of the superrich in London to Paris’s owned-but-empty “zombie” housing to the ultra-thin luxury “pencil towers” sprouting in Manhattan, the book demonstrates how investment imperatives shape what and how we build on a global scale.
He is also the author of Binning House (ORO, 2017) and has contributed chapters to books such as Industries of Architecture (Routledge, 2015) and Post-War Middle-Class Housing (Peter Lang, 2015). His writing has also appeared in Log, Harvard Design Magazine, Real Review, Praxis, the Journal of Architectural Education, Azure, Canadian Architect, Topos, and 306090.
Matthew has received research funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the British Columbia Arts Council. He received the AIA/ACSA Housing Design Education Award in 2012 and a Faculty Design Award – Honourable Mention from the ASCA in 2015.
Matthew Soules Architecture has received numerous awards including the Architectural Institute of British Columbia’s Emerging Firm and Special Jury Awards in 2010 and 2015 respectively, an Architizer A+ Award in the Cultural Pavilions Category in 2015 and a selection by Twenty + Change in 2011. The firm’s work has appeared in a range of popular and professional media including Azure, Canadian Architect, Domus, eVolo, Metropolis, the Globe and Mail and the National Post.
Selected Publications
Matthew Soules, Icebergs, Zombies, and the Ultra Thin: Architecture and Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century (Princeton Architectural Press, 2021).
Matthew Soules, “Financial Formations,” in Industries of Architecture, eds. Katie Lloyd Thomas, Nick Beech and Tilo Amhoff (London: Routledge, 2016), 199-209.
Matthew Soules, “Deconstructing Livability. Perspectives from Central Vancouver,” in Post-War Middle-Class Housing: Models, Construction and Change, eds. Gaia Caramellino and Federico Zanfi (Bern: Peter Lang, 2015), 329-349.
Education
M.Arch, Harvard University
BA, University of British Columbia
