Dr Yat Shun Kei PhD MArch BA(AS) HKIA ARIBA FHEA

I am interested in how the construction of environmental notions shaped architectural and urban culture. In this effort, I have completed a monograph on how the term 'built environment' was invented to promote national and regional planning in 1960s Britain. My current work investigates the changes in architecture brought by the establishment of the Department of the Environment (1970). These works are aiming to establish an alternative timeline to the current discourse of architecture's environmental turn in the 1970s.
By grappling with the environmental notion, I also question its impact of what it 'environs.' How population, people, and citizenship were being made and unmade through the environment is part and parcel of this work. For example, through this framework, I considered how land law, planning mechanism, and the perception of land shortage in Hong Kong shaped the treatment of Vietnamese refugees (1975-2000). With Daniel M. Cooper, we completed a study on the construction and disappearance of Vietnamese refugee camps in Hong Kong, funded by Lord Wilson Heritage Trust (Hong Kong).

I am interested in receiving PhD applications in this research area, in particular
- Construction of environmental science or other scientific rhetoric in architecture.
- Environment in (post)colonial conditions
- Conflicts and disjunction in environmental debates/ policies.

I am interested in the architectural and urban changes after the so-called "Death of Modernism." In particular, how architects and architectural historians transposed methods and ideas from the Modern Movement into other discourses? How did the contemporaneous environmental and radical movement shaped discussions in architecture and urbanism? My research method combines archival research with inter-disciplinary studies, drawing references from social science, geography and planning policies.

I am interested in receiving PhD applications in this research area, in particular
- Postmodern architecture
- Architecture and the globalised neoliberal conditions