Research Fellow

About the Programme

The Trans-Asian Material Histories of Architecture and Conservation programme examines how building materials, craft practices, construction techniques, contractors, commercial agents, craftsmen, and architectural ideas circulated across China, Singapore, and Southeast Asian port-city networks from the early nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth. Its intellectual position is that architectural modernity and conservation value in Southeast Asia were produced not by one-way importation from Europe or China, but through multi-directional material circulations among port cities, diasporic communities, colonial administrations, merchants, craftsmen, contractors, and local users.

Materials are treated as evidence of architectural knowledge, cultural translation, diaspora, technology transfer, and conservation value — not as a neutral substrate awaiting stylistic decoration. The programme’s empirical work feeds directly into the international conservation-theory debate framed by the Nara Document on Authenticity (1994) and the Nara+30 framework (2024). It is organised into four research clusters, and the candidate will join an inaugural team that already includes a doctoral researcher and a research fellow.

Central research question.  How did building materials and construction knowledge circulate across China and Southeast Asia, and how did these circulations reshape architectural form, craft practice, conservation value, and regional identity?

The Four Research Clusters

Applications are welcome to any one of the following clusters. Candidates should identify the cluster their proposed work would anchor and may indicate secondary cross-cluster contributions.

• Cluster 1 — Material Provenance and Trade Networks. Building materials as traded goods; reconstructing the maritime, commercial, and institutional networks through which timber, lime, cement, iron, steel, tiles, bricks, glass, ceramics, pigments, stone, and plaster moved across maritime Asia.
• Cluster 2 — Craft, Labour and Technical Transmission. How techniques moved through people: Teochew, Hokkien, and Cantonese craft networks; temple and clan-association construction; lime plaster, ceramic-shard appliqué, timber joinery, and roof ornament; migrant contractors and artisan lineages; repair and replication as historical evidence.
• Cluster 3 — Material Modernities and Hybrid Building Types. How new materials reconfigured building types, aesthetics, and spatial practices — shophouses, Chinese temples, tropical residential typologies, and civic and religious buildings — as coherent material-technical solutions rather than stylistic mash-ups.
• Cluster 4 — Conservation, Authenticity and Material Evidence.  How material-history research changes conservation decisions: replacement-versus-retention judgments, like-for-like repair specifications, defence of later building layers, material testing, and interpretation strategies, anchored in the Nara and Nara+30 frameworks.

Role and Responsibilities

The Research Fellow will pursue an independent but programme-aligned research agenda within their chosen cluster, contributing to the programme’s collective output and collaborative life. Responsibilities include:

• Conducting original research within the nominated cluster, including archival, fieldwork, built-investigation, and where relevant material-science or digital-humanities components.
• Producing high-quality scholarly outputs (refereed journal articles and/or chapters), with potential contributions to monograph-scale work and to the conservation-handbook genre.
• Contributing to data infrastructure where applicable (e.g. material-provenance datasets, GIS route reconstructions, network analysis, computer-vision work on archival photographs).
• Collaborating with the inaugural team and the PI, including shared work on Cluster 4, and participating in programme seminars, workshops, and partner engagements.
• Supporting grant development, knowledge dissemination, and engagement with partner institutions (e.g. URA, NHB, ICOMOS Singapore, regional universities and archives), as appropriate.
• Mentoring and informal support of graduate researchers where suitable.

Qualifications and Requirements

Essential

• A PhD (awarded, or to be conferred before the appointment start date) in architectural history, architecture, conservation/heritage studies, history, art history, or a closely related field.
• A demonstrated record of, or clear potential for, high-quality research output appropriate to career stage.
• A research proposal that fits one of the four clusters and engages the programme’s material-history and conservation-method position.
• Strong written and spoken English and the ability to work both independently and collaboratively.

Desirable (depending on cluster)

• Reading and/or research competence in one or more relevant languages (e.g. Chinese, including Hokkien/Teochew/Cantonese contexts; Thai; Dutch; or other regional/archival languages).
• Experience with archival research, oral-history methods, comparative built investigation, or fieldwork in China, Singapore, or the wider region.
• Skills in material science and decay analysis, conservation practice, or digital-humanities methods (network analysis, GIS, computer vision).
• Familiarity with international conservation theory, including the Nara framework.

What We Offer

• A contract appointment with research support, embedded in an active, internationally connected programme at SUTD ASD.
• Access to a strong network of archives, heritage institutions, clan-association and craft networks, and regional university partners.
• Mentorship from the PI and a clear pathway for independent scholarly development and publication.

How to Apply

Applicants should submit a single PDF containing the following:

1. Cover letter stating the cluster (1–4) the application addresses and summarising fit with the programme.
2. Research proposal (maximum 2,000 words) setting out the proposed project: research questions, sources and methods, anticipated outputs, fit with the nominated cluster, and any cross-cluster contributions. The proposal is the central selection document — it should make clear how the candidate and the project fit the programme.
3. Full curriculum vitae, including a publications list.
4. One writing sample (e.g. a journal article, chapter, or thesis chapter).
5. Contact details for two to three referees (referees will not be contacted without prior notice).