The Global Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. Daniel's work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
About Daniel
Dan is interested in the intersections between Western architecture and world spatial practices, past and present. Working across architecture, anthropology, ethnography, human geography, material culture, socio-cultural history and urban history, Dan's research combines fieldwork with critical theory to explore how different peoples experience - and give meaning - to everyday spaces.
He is Project Lead on Rethinking Architecture and Empire: intercultural placemaking in James Bay,Ìýa transdisciplinary, multi-institution study ofÌý intercultural placemaking in Hudson Bay, co-created with the Indigenous Cree communities (£1.18 million AHRC standard grant submitted October 2025, outcome pending).Ìý
He is Project Co-Lead forÌýEmpire and Place, an innovative interdisciplinary project exploring the legacies of empire across the UK's historic port cities (£1.4 million AHRC standard grant submitted December 2025, outcome pending).Ìý
He is also Project Lead for a new project with Performance and Sports Psychology in partnership with the National Trust exploring biohaptic approaches to capturing spatial experience (AHRC standard grant in preparation for submission September 2026, costed £1.3 million).Ìý
From 2023 to 25, he was part of the interdisciplinary project teamÌý leading the £1.2 million ESPRC-funded ICONIC digital health project developing extended reality platforms for remote access to historic sites. He also recently worked on Historic England-funded research with Marine Science and was Project Lead for the AHRC Impact Accelerator project,ÌýRethinking Georgian Sites with the National Trust, exploring new approaches to the interpretation of historic sites.
Dan writes on theoretical approaches to everyday space and place, including the new monographÌýHistories of Space, Place and ExperienceÌý(invited commissioned by Routledge, 2025), theÌý five-volumeÌýEncyclopedia of the WorldÌýco-edited with Marcel Vellinga (Bloomsbury, 2026),ÌýOn the Occupation, Appropriation and Interpretation of BuildingsÌýwith Marcel Vellinga (Routledge, 2014); and, 'Concepts of the Vernacular' with Robert Brown in theÌýSAGE Handbook of Architectural TheoryÌý(SAGE, 2012).
He has two new spatial history monographs withÌýOxford University Press: A Night at the Inn: Space, Place, and the Elite Experience of EmpireÌý(OUP, 2026);Ìýand,ÌýBritish Architecture and its Global ContextsÌý(OUP, forthcoming 2027), an invited commission for OUP's landmarkÌýOxford History of ArtÌýseries.ÌýPrevious books includeÌýInner Empire: Architecture and Empire in the British IslesÌýwith G. A. BremnerÌý(Manchester University Press, 2024);ÌýBuilding the British Atlantic WorldÌýwith Bernard L. Herman (UNC Press, 2016);ÌýThe Idea of the Cottage in English ArchitectureÌý(Routledge, 2016);ÌýThe Highland House Transformed: Architecture and Identity on the edge of BritainÌý(Edinburgh University Press, 2009),ÌýScotsmanÌýHistory Book of the Year.
Internationally recognised as a 'preeminent scholar' of architecture,Ìý empire and the everyday (Society of Architectural Historians, USA, 2024), Dan studied Architectural History at the University of St Andrews as an undergraduate (MA Hons, First Class, 1996) and postgraduate (PhD, 2002). He has been a Leverhulme Postdoctoral Fellow at Dalhousie University, Canada, Research Fellow at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Research Fellow at the Winterthur Museum, Visiting Fellow at UPenn, Visiting Fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Visiting Professor at the Centre for Scottish Studies, University of Guelph, Canada. His track-record of research grants include a Leverhulme Postdoctoral Fellowship, AHRC Network Grant, AHRC Mid Career Fellowship, AHRC Impact Fellowship, Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship and ESPRC Standard Grant.Ìý
He has been awarded the Allen G. Noble Prize by the International Society for Landscape, Place and Material Culture; the Jeffrey Cook Prize by the Interntational Assocation for the Study of Traditional Environments and History Book of the Year by the Scotsman forÌýThe Highland House Transformed.Ìý
From 2010 to 2017, he was Research Lead (Uo13 REF Coordinator) for the Pltymouth School of Architecture establishing its research environment and leading the School to its first REF submissions (stepping down to take up a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship based at the Stuart Weitzam School of Design, UPenn). Today, he has a research leadership role at the Â鶹´«Ã½ as Chair of the interdisciplinary Spatial Experiences research group and Faculty Research Lead for Heritage and Culture (developing major grant-funded projects, establishing internal and external interdisiplinary networks, supporting colleagues and enabling new collaborations with external partners).
Dan pioneered concept-led architectural humanities teaching across Â鶹´«Ã½'s UG and PGT Architecture programmes, 2008 -Ìý 2017. Moving to the School of Humanities, he currently teaches World History, Imperial History, Legacies of Empire and Public History and Heritage across BA History and Art History and is Programme LeadÌý the innovative industry-facing postgraduate programme, MA Heritage Theory and Practice in partnership with the National Trust.
He was Director of the University of Pennsylavnia's European Conservation Summer School. Before moving into academia he worked in the heritage sector for organisations including: English Heritage, Historic Environment Scotland and the Guggenheim, Venice.Ìý
He is the founding director of the spin-out heritage consultancy, . Â鶹´«Ã½ Heritage Praxis (PHP) works across a portfolio of partnership heritage projects including policy research and interpretation planning. PHP works through non-academic grant-funded partnerships and contract research with the heritage sector. Current partners include the National Trust, Historic England, Dartmoor National Park, The Box, National Marine Park and Powderham Castle.
Teaching
Programme LeadÌý
- MA Heritage Theory and Practice, 2018 –
- MRes Architecture, 2008 - 14
Module Lead
- World History, 1st year, BA HistoryÌý
- What is History?, 1st year, BA HistoryÌý
- Ìý‘Public History and Heritage’, 1st year, BA HistoryÌý
- ‘History and Heritage: Legacies of Empire’,Ìý 2nd year /3rd year, BA HistoryÌý
- ‘The British Atlantic World’, 3rd year BA History
- Cultural Contexts Stream Lead (Stage 1 – 3), BAÌý Architecture, 2008 – 14
PhD supervisor
I have successfully supervised a range of PhD students within the fields of cultural heritage, architectural history and theory and material culture from prison graffiti in Malaysia to female agency in the British country houseÌý and the heritage space of rivers.