معرفی
Dr Irit Katz is an architect, urban theorist and poet who serves as Associate Professor of Architecture and Urban Studies in the Department of Architecture at the University of Cambridge and as Fellow and Director of Studies in Architecture at Christ’s College. She is also Director of the University’s MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design and MArch programmes, and co-founder of UNFOLD, Cambridge’s decolonising-architecture collective.
Education
- PhD in Architecture, University of Cambridge
- MA (Magna Cum Laude) in Hermeneutics and Cultural Studies
- BArch (Cum Laude), Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem
Research Focus
Her research interrogates how built environments are produced and transformed under extreme conditions—displacement, conflict, settler-colonial expansion, and environmental injustice—viewing camps, borders, and urban margins as dynamic sites where political negotiations and cultural transformations are continuously staged and reworked. Methodologically she combines spatial ethnography, participatory and visual methods, archival research, and critical theory to examine historic and contemporary camps across Israel-Palestine, Europe, and other global contexts.
Key Publications & Awards
- The Common Camp: Architecture of Power and Resistance in Israel–Palestine (University of Minnesota Press, 2022) – recipient of the RIBA President’s Award for Research
- Camps Revisited: Multifaceted Spatialities of a Modern Political Technology (co-edited, Rowman & Littlefield, 2018)
- John Urry Article Prize, Mellon/SAH Author Award
Advising & Grants
As Director of the MPhil and MArch programmes she supervises and mentors a growing cohort of doctoral and masters students working on architecture, displacement and decolonial spatial practices. She has held fellowships and research grants at Perry World House (University of Pennsylvania), LSE Cities, and the University of Sheffield’s Urban Institute, and leads externally funded projects on global camps and infrastructures of care.
Labs & Initiatives
Beyond academia, she co-founded UNFOLD, an interdisciplinary platform at Cambridge that re-examines architectural pedagogy and practice through decolonial and anti-racist lenses. Her applied work links scholars, activists and NGOs to rethink humanitarian design standards and migrant shelter provision in Europe and the Middle East.
