Yahya is a senior lecturer in architecture, Programme Leader of the BSc (Hons) Architecture course, and a senior fellow of Higher Education Academy. He currently teaches across both UG and PG levels of the Architecture course. Previously in practice, he has worked on a number of design projects internationally and in the UK was involved in the refurbishment of the Liverpool Royal Court Theatre.
Yahya holds a PhD in architecture from Liverpool University. His research interests lie in the exploration of geometrical form in architectural design. Bridging between spatial sensibility and responsiveness to the environment and pre-existing conditions. Yahya's research pursues Integral Theory in architecture; using architectural form as the capacity to entangle spiritual and pragmatic aspects of design. He has acted as a member of the scientific and organising committee and reviewer for several journals and international conferences. Some of his works have received internationally excellent recognition as part of the HEI's Research Excellence Framework 2021. He has worked on a number of funded research projects in Malaysia, Hong Kong and the UK. Previously, he was a Co-Principal Investigator for an EPSRC (Connected Everything II) Project exploring Intelligent Empathy in Design. He was also a recipient of the Vice Chancellor's ECR award for a research project investigating the impact of architectural form and daylighting on users' emotional perception. Yahya is a reviewer and a member of the AHRC, EPSRC, ESRC and British Council's Arts and Humanities College.
As part of his pedagogic research, he is interested in experimental form-finding methods adopted from Vkhutemas School of architecture, in particular, the course "Space" developed by the Soviet Avant-Garde architect Nikolai Ladovsky.
Area of expertise
Yahya's current work centres around theoretical and critical sustainability in architecture, which seeks to entangle social, theoretical, psycho-physiological, and ecological considerations into sustainable design practices. This emerging field aims to go beyond technical aspects of sustainability to address the complex and interconnected social and cultural dimensions of sustainable architecture. His research contributes to this field by exploring new ways of understanding and practicing sustainable architecture through a critical and theoretical lens in particular, Wilber's "Integral Theory" and Derrida's concept of "Trace".
If you are interested in pursuing a PhD in a related topic, please submit your research proposal and CV to Yahya.lavafpour@uwe.ac.uk
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