I am a reader in Architecture and have been a member of Manchester School of Architecture (MSA) staff since 2010.  

My primary interests are in architectural anthropology, architectural drawing, and filmic architecture.  I also have expertise in multi-sensory urbanism and Japanese architecture.  

I am currently finishing a monograph on ‘Festival as Architecture: Japanese Matsuri and Theories of Temporality in Architecture’ for Bloomsbury, and have also published the monographs ‘Anthropology for Architects’ (Bloomsbury, 2020) and ‘Drawing Parallels’ (Routledge, 2019).  I am also writing a monograph on ‘Thresholds in Japanese Architecture’ (Routledge, 2027).  Other publications include ‘Research Methods for Architecture’ (Laurence King, 2016; second edition forthcoming from Routledge in 2027) and editing ‘Architecture, Festival and the City’ with Christian Frost and Jemma Browne (Routledge, 2018).

I co-lead of the Built Heritage Research Group and I am a member of the Non-Standard Habitats Atelier, where I lead the MArch 2 cohort.  I am a member of both the Inscriptive Practices and Future Processes team where I deliver extra-curricular teaching on drawing and notation as well as film and sound design.

Nonstandard Habitats Atelier

I lead the MArch 2 cohort for the Nonstandard Habitats Atelier, where we make use of design futures and speculative fiction to devise scenarios for the near-future of the built environment.  This is informed by my interests in socially produced architecture, architectural anthropology, and processes of inscriptive practices and filmic architecture.

Anthropology of Home

I lead the BA3 elective on Anthropology of Home, where students make use of a range of anthropological theories and concepts in order to develop a thick description of a domestic space they are familiar with.  The elective makes use of a wide range of inscriptive practices such as sensory notations, framed as field notes to aid in this deeper understanding by way of architectural anthropology.

Past Teaching

I have taught a wide range of Humanities courses in the BA (Hons) in architecture over the past fifteen years including Architectural Histories, Thinking Through Drawing, Inscribing the City, Agenda Building, and World Urbanisms.  I have also led a RM Workshop for MArch in Filmic Architecture.  I was a member of the Flux Atelier in MArch before joining Nonstandard Habitats in 2025.

Postgraduate supervision

Completed:

Paul Cureton, 2010-2013: Drawing in Landscape Architecture: Fieldwork, Poetics, Methods, Translation and Representation.  (Principal Supervisor).

Charalampos Politakis, 2010-2013: The Human Body as. Building: Architectural Colossi and their Metaphors.  (First Supervisor).

Partial Supervision (students completed after I left institution):

Jenny Holt (2012-2017): Caught in the Fabric of World Landscape and Documentary, a Dialogic Practice (Completed after I left MMU in 2014)

Derek Trillo (2012-2018): ‘The Flow of Life’: Photographing Architecture as Populated Spaces (Completed after I left MMU in 2014)

Sally Morfill (2012-2018): One among your moments: the myrioramic potential of drawing translation (Completed after I left MMU in 2014)

Osama Naim (2017-2024): Designing Tacitly: A Study of Concept Design in the Milieu of Interior and Architecture Design Practices (Completed after I left UoM in 2020)

David Johnson (2017-2025): Photo encounters with my personal possessions: a material autofiction of attachment, care and grief. (Completed after I left UoM in 2020)

Salma Soliman (2017-2025): The Push of Gravity: Designing for an Enhanced Human Body Movement (Completed after I left UoM in 2020)

In Progress:

Erika Conchis, 2021- Designing Resonance (First Supervisor)

Charlie White, 2024- Sound Protection / Schallschutz: Negotiating noise in urban regeneration to accommodate club culture (Principal Supervisor)

James Butler (2026-(PT)) Beyond Sight: Phenomenology and the Sensory Experiences of Blind and Visually Impaired Residents (First Supervisor)

Press and media appearances and contributions

BBC1 10 O’Clock News piece on prefabrication and modular housing.  Air date 18th November 2016.

Monocle 24 Radio Urbanist Podcast on ‘Sensory Urbanism’ March 2017.

http://monocle.com/radio/shows/the-urbanist/285/what-is-sensory-urbanism/

Independent Online on lighting in public buildings.  

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/design/how-architecture-uses-space-light-and-material-to-affect-your-mood-american-institute-architects-a6985986.html May 2016

The National (Scottish Newspaper) on the proposed demolition of Cumbernauld Town Centre.

https://www.thenational.scot/culture/19987268.cumbernauld-town-centre-miss-gone/

Architects Journal further comment on Cumbernauld Town Centre.

https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/cumbernaulds-divisive-brutalist-town-centre-set-for-demolition 

South China Morning Post (syndicated to MSN) on Sanja Matsuri, Tokyo.  March/April 2025

https://www.scmp.com/postmag/travel/article/3304105/tokyos-sanja-matsur…

https://www.msn.com/en-xl/lifestyle/other/tokyo-s-sanja-matsuri-festiva…

Research

Research Interests

My primary research is into architectural anthropology.  Rather than conduct ethnographic studies of architectural practice, my concern is to see both disciplines as equivalent to one another and to contribute to a graphic anthropology where drawings, sketches, notations, diagrams, maps and other inscriptive practices can reveal more about a social and architectural context.

I am developing this through a long engagement with Japanese urban festivals such as Sanja Matsuri and Gion Matsuri, where temporary and mobile pieces of architecture re-make the city.  Understanding the multiple appropriations and re-uses of space during the festival which collapses the existing social order to reveal normally hidden elements - the city is at its most urban in these moments.

This is allied to my interest in architectural drawing itself, understanding the processes by which it makes the world knowable.  By understanding drawing as a form of perception, we can open up practices to focus the attention on aspects such as the senses, movements through space, and geometry.

I continue to also work on research into film and architecture, developing work on the concept of montage in architecture, the relationship between production design and locations with architectural theories, and ways to use cinema to think about the built environment.

Key Publications

Lucas, R.  2016.  Research Methods for Architecture.  Laurence King.

Browne, J., Frost, C. & Lucas, R. (Eds.).  2018.  Architecture, Festival & the City. Routledge. 

Lucas, R.  2019.  Drawing Parallels: Knowledge Production in Axonometric, Isometric, and Oblique Drawings.  Routledge. 

Lucas, R.  2020.  Anthropology for Architects: Social Relations and the Built Environment.  Bloomsbury.

Lucas, R. 2026.  Festival as Architecture: Japanese Matsuri and Theories of Temporality in Architecture.  Bloomsbury.  UNDER CONTRACT, Forthcoming 2026.

Lucas, R. 2027.  Thresholds in Japanese Architecture.  Forthcoming, Routledge.

Lucas, R. 2027.  Research Methods for Architecture (Second Edition). Forthcoming, Routledge.
 

Works in Translation

Lucas, R.  2023.  建筑学人文研究方法 [Research Methods for Architecture].  Feng, H., Trans.  Beijing: China Architecture Publishing & Media. [Mandarin Translation]

Lucas, R.  2024.  给建筑师的人类学：社会关系与建成环境 [Anthropology for Architects].  Beijing: China Architecture & Building Press. [Mandarin Translation]

Lucas, R. 2024. 経路、徒歩移動およびウェイファインディング [Routes, Walking and Wayfinding, Chapter 6 of Anthropology for Architects].  Kanazawa: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa. [Japanese Translation]

Selected Invited Talks & Keynotes

Drawing Parallels: lines of conversation in design and architecture.  With Mike Anusas.  Invited speaker, IKKM, Bauhaus University.  July 2014.

Drawing as Observation: Orthographic Drawing as Organised Perception.  Invited Workshop: KFI Lab, University of St Andrews.  October 2014.

Revisiting the Retroactive Manifesto in Seoul.  Invited speaker, ‘Rolling Around like Gorillas on the Incline: Opening the Imaginary in Architecture and the Arts’.  Tate Liverpool.  October 2014.

Architectural Anthropology.  Architectural Institute of Japan, Culture & Environment Group inaugural symposium.  Tokyo Institute of Technology.  May 2015.

Why a Drawing is not an Image (and why that may not be a problem).  Invited Plenary.  Beyond Perception 15, SRAC, University of Aberdeen.  September 2015.

Sensory Notation.  for “Multi-Sensory Approach to Ageing-friendly Design in High-Density Contexts” at National University of Singapore.  March 2018.

Notations of Architectural Anthropology.  Architectural Institute of Japan, Culture & Environment Group symposium.  Tokyo University.  May 2018.

Embodied Urbanism & Architecture of Movement  Co+Labo Radovic, Keio University, Tokyo.  May 2018.

A Graphic Anthropology of Sanja Matsuri.  Invited Talk, Architectural Ethnography, ETH Zurich.  November 2018.

Drawing Parallels.  Invited Talk, University of Edinburgh, October 2019.

Why I Draw.  Invited Talk, Klis Case Workshop, Meiji University; Keio University; University of Split, September 2020.

All Drawings are Failures.  Arquitectura y Etnografía, UDLA Santiago de Chile, September 2020.

A Graphic Anthropology of Sanja Matsuri, Invited Talk, Architecture, Space & Society Centre, Birkbeck University, October 2020.

Matsuri Architecture.  Invited Talk, Pitt Rivers Museum Research Seminar in Visual, Material & Museum Anthropology, 19th November 2021.

Performing Asakusa.  Invited Talk, Civic Identity, Performance and the City, London Metropolitan University.  March 2022. 

Orthographic Anthropology.  Invited symposium participant/talk, Baukulturanalyse.  OST Ostschweizer Fachhochschule, St. Gallen, Switzerland.  November 2025. 

Grants

The Architecture of Gion Matsuri
May 2019 - May 2020
Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation Small grant, £2,000

Knowing from the Inside: Architecture, Art, Anthropology & Design (KFI)
June 2013 - May 2018
University of Aberdeen, Advisor & Associate Researcher to Project
European Research Council Advanced Grant £25,000 (of €2,434,878)

Anthropology of Geometry
April 2017, January 2018
University of Manchester / University of Aberdeen
Journal of Development Studies & Global Development Institute / ERC (KFI - above) £2,250 Workshop Grant + £3,000 Matched funding from KFI

The Morphology and Ethnography of the Urban Marketplace in South Korea
January 2012 - June 2014
Manchester Metropolitan University
MIRIAD Research Project £6,920

Books

Lucas, R., 2020. 'Anthropology for Architects: Social Relations and the Built Environment', Bloomsbury Visual Arts.

Lucas, R., 2020. 'Drawing Parallels Knowledge Production in Axonometric, Isometric and Oblique Drawings', Routledge.

Browne, J., Frost, C., Lucas, R., 2018. 'Architecture, Festival and the City', Routledge.

Lucas, R., 2016. 'Research Methods for Architecture', Laurence King Publishing.

Lucas, R., 2016. 'Taking a line for a walk: Walking as an aesthetic practice'.

Book Chapters

Lucas, R., 2022. ''A house for...': Experiments in Filmic Architecture'. In Ingold, T. (eds.) Knowing from the Inside Cross-Disciplinary Experiments with Matters of Pedagogy, pp. 141-164, Bloomsbury.

Lucas, R., 2021. 'Architecture'. In International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, Wiley.

Lucas, R., 2020. 'Drawing as Being: Moving beyond ways of knowing, modes of attention and habits'. In Visual Research Methods in Architecture, Intellect (UK).

Lucas, R., 2020. 'On Drawing: Transmission from the Lifeworld to Paper at Namdaemun Market'. In Surface and Apparition The Immateriality of Modern Surface, Bloomsbury Publishing.

Lucas, R., 2020. 'Threshold as Social Surface'. In Anusas, M., Simonetti, C. (eds.) Surfaces Transformations of Body, Materials and Earth, Routledge.

Lucas, R., 2019. 'The Discipline of Tracing in Architectural Drawing'. In van Leeuwen, T. (eds.) The Materiality of Writing A Trace Making Perspective, Routledge.

Lucas, R., 2018. 'Threshold and Temporality in Architecture: Practices of Movement in Japanese Architecture'. In Bunn, S. (eds.) Anthropology and Beauty From Aesthetics to Creativity, Routledge.

Lucas, R., 2016. 'Inscriptive Practice as Gesture'. In Sheil, B., Migayrou, F., Pearson, L., Allen, L. (eds.) Drawing Futures: Speculations in Contemporary Drawing for Art and Architecture, UCL Press.

Lucas, R., 2016. 'Taking a Line for a Walk: Flânerie, Drifts, and the Artistic Potential of Urban Wandering'. In Ways of Walking Ethnography and Practice on Foot, Routledge.

Lucas, R., 2014. 'The Sketchbook as Collection: a Phenomenology of Sketching'. In Bartram, A., El-Bizri, N., Gittens, D. (eds.) Recto Verso: Redefining the Sketchbook, Routledge.

Lucas, R., 2014. 'The sketchbook as collection: A phenomenology of sketching'. In Recto Verso: Redefining the Sketchbook, pp. 191-205.

Lucas, R., 2009. 'Gestural Artefacts: Notations of a Daruma Doll.'. In Fieldnotes and Sketchbooks Challenging the Boundaries Between Descriptions and Processes of Describing, Peter Lang.

Ingold, T., Lucas, R., 2007. 'The 4 A's (Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture): Reflections on a Teaching and Learning Experience'. In Ways of Knowing Anthropological Approaches to Crafting Experience and Knowledge, Berghahn Books.

Journal Articles

Lucas, R., 2012. 'The instrumentality of Gibson's medium as an alternative to space', CLCWeb - Comparative Literature and Culture, 14 (3).

Lucas, R., Romice, O., 2010. 'Assessing the multi-sensory qualities of urban space: A methodological approach and notational system for recording and designing the multi-sensory experience of urban space', Psyecology, 1 (2), pp. 197-211.

Lucas, R., Romice, O., 2010. 'Assessing the multi-sensory qualities of urban space: A methodological approach and notational system for recording and designing the multi-sensory experience of urban space', Psyecology, 1 (2), pp. 263-276.

Lucas, R., 2009. 'Designing a notation for the senses', Architectural Theory Review, 14 (2), pp. 173-192.

Lucas, R., 2008. 'Getting lost in Tokyo', Footprint, 2, pp. 91-104.