Research
Research Interests
Helen's research is concerned with the questions about what feminist architecture might be and what this means for our cities and spaces. By consistently using an inclusive and participative approach her research and her teaching sets challenges for creating Feminist Cities with regard to otherness, types of feminisms and gendered territories. She loves having conversations about all things feminist inside and outside of the academy.
Conference organisation
'How Women Build?' 2020 (postponed to late 2021) https://www.msa.ac.uk/howwomenbuild/
Grants
2019 Paul Mellon Centre Event Support Grant for the Conference ‘How Women Build?’ £2900 (PI)
2019 Women’s History Network Conference Grant for the Conference ‘How Women Build?’ £500 (Co-I)
2019 MSARC £2500 plus matched funding of £2500 from Stretford Grammar School for Stretford Builds... a series of gossip pavilions at Stretford Grammar School (Project Leader)
2016 Arts Council £20,000 plus £5000 match funding for St Mary's Primary School for St Mary's Phase 2 playground build (Co-Leader in collaboration with TASC)
2015 Arts Council £25,000 for St Mary's Phase 1 playground build (Co-Leader in collaboration with TASC)
2015 Arts Council £25,000 Travellers Playground in Blackpool (Co_leader in collaboration with Stefan White)
2014 Arts Council £15,000 plus £10,000 Primary School matched funding from all schools involved for Den City and Living Here Living There exhibitions, builds and participative workshops (Co-Leader in collaboration with TASC)
2013 St Ambrose Barlow Installation Hope and Promise £1000 from School for materials for the installation
2012 £125,000 Arts Council and £2000 Ideas Foundation for Atelier Zero (Co-Leader in collaboration with Tom Jefferies, Laura Sanderson and Office for Subversive Architecture)
2003 CEBE/RIBA 'Sustainability in the curriculum' £50,000 (Co-I)
2002 £200,000 Biffa Awards with Anne Chick at Kingston University Investigating the obstacles to UK architects and designers specifying recycled products and materials (Co-I)
2001 £20,000 'The Business Case for Sustainable Property', Construction Confederation (Co-I)
2000 – 2003 £20,000Designing for Sustainability Research Group business sponsorship (Co-I)
1999 £5,000 Developer's Guide to Green Buildings (PI)
1999 – 2000 £48,000 BedZED housing scheme technical research (PI alongside Bill Dunster Architects)
1999 Sustainable use of coppice timber in England report and conference paper,1999 £5,000 (PI)
1998 £20,000 'Project House 2000', Wates Built Homes (PI)
1998 £5,000 Exploration of Small Projects in Architectural Practices (PI)
Exhibitions
Aston, H., Places Project/TASC, 2015. Living here living there exhibition, Cube Gallery, Manchester, 2015.
Aston, H., 2015. Places Projects - den city and living here, living there, CUBE Gallery, Manchester, 2014-15.
Aston, H., Places Project/TASC, 2014. Den City, Cube Gallery, Manchester, 2014.
Aston, H. and Dr Stefan White, 2011. Sharing the City: MSA_P exhibition, CUBE Gallery, Manchester, September-October 2011..
Aston, H. and Dr Stefan White, 2011. Sharing the City: MSA_P pop-up shop, Trafford Centre, January 2011.
Aston, H. and Dr Stefan White, 2010. MSA_P exhibition, NoiseLAB, June 2010.
Kingston School of Architecture, 2000. Project House 2000, Wates Built Homes, Kinsgton University, 2000.
Aston, H., 1998. Postcards from Whiby, RIBA HQ, Portland Place, 22/6/1998.
Aston, H., 1998. Postcards from Whitby, Royal Institute of Architects, London, July-September 1998.
Artefacts
Aston, H., iballastonarchitecture, 2019. 'H7 a micro house in Appledore', Appledore, North Devon.
Aston, H., Renshaw, S., 2019. 'Stretford Builds... a series of gossip pavilions at Stretford Grammar School', Stretford Grammar School.
Aston, H., Renshaw, S., Crompton, E., 2018. 'A Great Knowledge Give Away: 100 feminist architectural texts for International Women's Day 2018', Manchester School of Architecture.
Aston, H., Timmins, K., 2017. 'Feminist Architectural Wallpaper', Praxxis.
Aston, H., McCusker, S., 2017. 'Stretford Streetscapes 2017 Pop-Up Shop and Participative Design Event at Stretford Public Hall', Stretford Public Hall, Stretford, M32 0LG.
Aston, H., TASC, 2016. 'St Mary's Primary School, Phase 2', St Mary's Primary School, Moss Side Manchester.
Aston, H., 2016. 'St Mary's Primary School, Phase 2', further development of the outdoor spaces with and for the children at key stage 1, St Mary's Primary School, Moss Side Manchester.
Aston, H., McCusker, S., 2016. 'Stretford Streetscapes 2016, Pop-Up Shop and participative design community engagement event at Stretford Mall', Stretford Mall, Manchester.
Aston, H. and Dr Stefan White, 2015. 'Blackpool Travellers Playground', a playground for a traveller community in Blackpool - the playground was designed along with the children. It was developed and constructed alongside Maddi Mooney and Matt Shanley, 2015.
Aston, H., TASC, 2015. 'St Mary's Primary School, Phase 1', St Mary's Primary School, Moss Side Manchester.
Aston, H., Places Project/TASC, 2014. 'den city', All Saints Park, MMU.
Aston, H., Places Project/TASC, 2014. 'Living here living there', All Saints Park and Webster Primary School.
Aston, H., 2014. 'Living here living there', In collaboration with Places and Webster Primary School, Moss Side year four children explored model making, drawing and photography to propose areas of the city., 2014.
White, S., Aston, H., Shanley, M., Mooney, M., Minsky, J., 2014. 'Playground for Chapel Road Travelers site, Blackpool', Chapel Road Travelers site, Blackpool, UK..
Aston, H., White, S., 2014. 'Sharing the City', Noiselab Gallery, Manchester.
Aston, H., White, S., 2014. 'Sharing the City Pop-Up Shop', Trafford Centre, Manchester.
Aston, H., 2013. 'Installation Hope and Promise.', St. Ambrose Barlow Secondary School, Salford.
Aston, H., 2013. 'Tatton allotment', When a shed is not a shed but a wall to a community arts allotment at the Tatton RHS show 2013, including a participative allotment poetry wall. Achieved a highly commended RHS award..
Aston, H., 2013. 'when is a shed not a shed?', Tatton Park.
Aston, H., iballastonarchitecture, 2012. '5th Urmston Scout Group new Head Quarters', Urmston Manchester.
Sanderson, L., Jefferies, T., Aston, H., 2012. 'Atelier[zero]', Manchester.
White, S., Aston, H., Manchester City Council, 2011. 'Sharing the city: Generations Together', Manchester.
Books
Farmer, J., 1999. 'Green Shift: changing attitudes in architecture to the natural world', Architectural Press.
Reports
Aston, H., 2020. 'Can community engaged research in architectural education influence citizenship?'.
Aston, H., Hammond, M., White, S., 2014. 'Manchester Compendium of Spatial Inclusion'.
Aston, H., 2003. ''Sustainability in the curriculum''.
Aston, H., 2003. 'Designing for Sustainability Research Group, 2000 - 2003'.
Royal Institute of British Architects, 2001. 'sustainability special interest group', CEBE/RIBA.
Aston, H., 2000. ''The Business Case for Sustainable Property','.
Aston, H., 2000. 'BedZED housing scheme'.
Aston, H., 2000. 'Project House 2000', Wates Built Homes.
Aston, H., 1999. 'Developer's Guide to Green Buildings'.
Journal Articles
, 2022. .
Conference Papers
Aston, H., 2021. 'Feminisms Conversations: feminist way of exploring vertical dialogues across the intersectional issues of class, race, sexual orientation, age, disability and gender.', ACTION. Feminisms and the spatialization of resistances. Lisbon (online), Lisbon, Portigal, 21/4/2021 - 23/4/2021.
Aston, H., 2019. 'High Street as Host', ESRC Festival of Social Science, 2019. A nationwide celebration of social sciences., MMU, 7/11/2019.
Aston, H., 2019. 'PRAXXIS and the Feminist School of Architecture', The Unequal Architect Conference, Glasgow School of Architecture.
Aston, H., Crompton, E., 2019. 'PRAXXIS: A Feminist Design Atelier', Fielding Architecture: Feminist Practices for a Decolonised Pedagogy, Brighton School of Architecture, Brighton University, 24/6/2019 - 25/6/2019.
Aston, H., 2019. 'PRAXXIS: an inclusive approach', Liveable City, Mayfield Station, Manchester, 18/11/2019 - 20/11/2019.
Boys, J., White, S., Aston, H., Partington, Z., 2017. ''Collaborating with disabled artists to 'do inclusion differently'', Architecture Connects AAE Conference, Oxford Brookes University, 6/9/2017 - 9/9/2017, in https://aaeconference2017.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/aae-2017-architecture-connects-proceedings_180706_low-res-online-sharing.pdf, pp. 408-413.
Sanderson, L., Aston, H., 2012. 'Atelier[zero] Negotiated Dialogues', The Production of Place, University of East London.
Aston, H., 2002. ''Future Sustainability Teaching and Learning'', Sustainability and Architectural Education Conference, RIBA, 6/9/2002 - 6/9/2002.
Aston, H., 2002. ''Red, Amber, Green: 75 Years of Communicating Sustainability'', Sustainable Urban Design Conference, Kingston University, 1/4/2002.
Aston, H., 2001. ''From Green Fingers to Green Goddess'', British Interwar Suburbs, Dorich House Symposium, Kingston University.
Aston, H., 2001. ''The Business Case for Sustainable Property'', Construction Confederation Annual Conference, Construction Confederation, London,.
Aston, H., 2001. ''Why green is the new pink or why architects wear black'', CUDE 2001 Conference, Cardiff University School of Architecture,, 7/7/2001.
Aston, H., 2000. ''Reacting to the Ground Force'', CUDE 2000 Conference, Sheffield University., CUDE 2000 Conference, Sheffield University., in The paper was published on the CEBE conference website.
Presentations
Aston, H., Renshaw, S., 2021. 'All these things Praxxis // a conversation', SHEBUILD #2 series of online talks with Urbanistas NorthWest.
Crompton, E., Aston, H., Valentine, K., Guerbet, S., 2020. 'Does Architecture Make You Anxious?', Manchester Lecture Theatre, All Saints Building.
Aston, H., 2020. 'The F Word: a celebration of a feminist inclusive approach.', Women In Planning IWD 2020 Event, Manchester.
Aston, H., 2020. 'These feminist things...', An interdisciplinary Network of Events celebrating all things feminist, all things women and policy for Baby Week across Manchester, Leeds and Bradford.
Whittow-Williams, R., 2019. ''Archi-culture': Exploring (innovations in) contemporary studio culture', Westminster School of Architecture, Westminster University.
Aston, H. and Sanderson, L, 2012. 'Atelier[zero] Negotiated Dialogues', The Production of Place, 2012, University of East London School of Architecture, December 2012.
Aston, H., 2002. 'Future Sustainability Teaching and Learning', Sustainability and Architectural Education Conference, Royal Institute of British Architects, June 2002, in CEBE website.
Aston, H., 2002. 'Red, Amber, Green: 75 Years of Communicating Sustainability', Sustainable Urban Design Conference, Kingston University, February 2002.
Aston, H., 2001. 'From Green Fingers to Green Goddess', British Interwar Suburbs, Dorich House Symposium, Kingston University and Design Historians Society, May 2001.
Aston, H., 2001. 'The Business Case for Sustainable Property', Construction Confederation Annual Conference, Construction Confederation, London, March 2001.
Aston, H., 2001. 'Why green is the new pink or why architects wear black', CUDE 2001 Conference, Cardiff University, September 2001, in CEBE website.
Aston, H., 2000. 'Reacting to the Ground Force', CUDE 2000 Conference, Sheffield University, April 2000, in CEBE website.
Posters
Aston, H., Crompton, E., 2019. 'PRAXXIS: Always Personal, Always Political', European Association of Architectural Educators Annual Conference 2019, Antwerp.
Other Outputs
Aston, H., 2016. 'the architecture school for children', business modelling, funding stream development, knowledge exchange, designing, masterplanning and re-constructing the outdoor spaces of each school's playgrounds in collaboration with one manchester alongside the hub primary schools in Moss Side and Hulme.
Aston, H., 2003. 'the wider architectural forum'.
Aston, H., 2001. 'Sustainability Special Interest Group', Sustainability and Architectural Education.