As an international research institution, the CCA operates in the spaces between architectural culture at large and academic discourse through exhibitions, publications, public events, and research programs. The CCA’s Research Fellowship Program supports innovative, advanced research to foster new kinds of intellectual exchange that spark long-term dialogue and debate.

At the CCA we are addressing a range of topics relevant to architectural discourse. Current topics of particular interest include: the digital turn in processes of design and communication in architecture; the changing context of the profession and its relationship to diverse societies, from the past, to the present and looking towards the future; the role of photography within visual culture, especially in the digital era; and the relationship of architecture to the environment. We are currently focusing on the role of architecture in decolonization, and welcome applications that explore this topic across historical and contemporary registers.

Fellowships are open to researchers, architects, and curators who intend to pursue interdisciplinary research on architecture, urbanism, landscape, and/or design at the CCA. We welcome applications from individuals who hold a PhD, or with equivalent professional experience. We value interdisciplinary approaches to the built environment that work from anthropology to Indigenous studies and beyond. Although proposed research projects may rely extensively on the CCA Collection as a primary source, we are interested above all in original and significant projects that develop both critical readings and creative research, media, and/or designs.

Research Fellows are offered a residency at the CCA between June and August 2024, for a period of one to two months, with the goal of creating a community researchers on site, particularly in relation to our Doctoral Research Residency Program. Each Fellow will have access to a private office and receive a monthly stipend of 5000 CAD, as well as additional financial support for travel expenses. Based on the scope of the proposed research project, the CCA’s curatorial committee will determine the duration of the residency in discussion with each candidate to best support their project. In addition to a public presentation of their work-in-progress, Research Fellows are expected to participate in discussions, seminars, and workshops organized at the CCA, exchange with CCA staff, and engage with the local academic and architectural community.

Five fellowships are available for 2024. Applications (in English or French) must include:

• a proposal (750-1,000 words) addressing how the research project relates to key lines of investigation at the CCA. We strongly encourage applicants with research projects based on recent acquisitions to check and confirm availability with ref@cca.qc.ca before submitting their project proposals.

• an abstract of the research proposal (250 words)

• a brief project schedule (300 words) for a one- or two-month period of research, describing key milestones

• a CV

• a short biography (80-100 words)

• one representative publication (article or book chapter) or equivalent

• the names of two potential referees. Letters of recommendation are not required at the time of application and will only be requested in the case of short-listed applicants.

Candidates for the 2024 Research Fellowship Program are invited to submit an application online through the CCA application portal.
Deadline: 25 September 2023 at midnight (12am, HNE)
You can consult the application Guidelines and Terms for more details on the requirements.

Research Fellows are selected by an international Consultative Committee made up of eight members: Phyllis Lambert (Founding Director Emeritus, CCA), Giovanna Borasi (Director and Chief Curator, CCA), Rafico Ruiz (Associate Director, Research, CCA), Juan Du, (University of Toronto), Seng Kuan (University of Tokyo, Harvard University and A+U), Shannon Mattern (University Pennsylvania), Itohan Osayimwese (Brown University), and Nasrine Seraji (University College Dublin).

The Consultative Committee will meet in October 2023 to select candidates. The results will be communicated in November 2023. Once granted for a specific year, the Research Fellowship is non-renewable or transferable.

For questions regarding the program, please contact studium@cca.qc.ca.

For updates on the CCA Research Fellowship Program, please subscribe to the CCA newsletter.

Andrea Bagnato
École de design et Haute école d’art du Valais and Willem de Kooning Academy
“Let It Flood: Luca Danese and the Origins of Hydraulic Modernity”

Oulimata Gueye
École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Lyon and independent curator
“Université des Futurs Africains: it matters what stories we tell to tell other stories of the future”

Jordan Kinder
Harvard University
“Spectres of Settler Infrastructuralism: Van GInkel Associates in the North”

Sofia Nannini
University of Bologna
“Cages for non-humans: An architectural history of animal farming”

Douglas Robb
University of Pennsylvania
“Boreal Fantasies: Constructing the low-carbon extractive frontier along Canada’s Northern Corridor”

2022 Research Fellows

Irene Brisson
Louisiana State University
“Lakay se Lakay: Domestic Architecture in Haitian Diaspora”

Marina Otero Verzier
Design Academy Eindhoven
“Breathing or Architectures of Air”

Desiree Valadares
University of British Columbia
“Staging the Scenic: Colonial and Carceral Proximities on British Columbia’s Infrastructural Routes”

2020-2022 Research Fellows

Simone Chung
National University of Singapore
“Space and Interface – Immaterial Architectures of the Digital Age”

Joseph Clarke
University of Toronto
“The Art of Work: Acoustics and Communication in 1960s Open Offices”

Joy Knoblauch
University of Michigan
“Critical Ergonomics: Pleasure, Pain, Emotion, and Sense Entangled in the Military Industrial Complex (194x-200x)”

Manu Sobti*
University of Queensland
“Wither Public Space in Chandigarh – Lost Landscapes and Social Choreographies”

Amelia Thorpe
University of New South Wales
“Paint, posts and productive polities: (re)constructing city-citizen relationships in the street”

*Support of Dr Manu Sobti’s research residency is made possible in partnership with Phantom Hands, which also contributed to the processing of the Pierre Jeanneret fonds.

2019 Research Fellows

Esra Akcan
Cornell University
“Intertwined Histories of Seven Other Wonders”

Thomas Daniell
Kyoto University
“Japan at the IAUS”

Jane Hutton
University of Waterloo
“Grubbing, Weeding, Mowing, Breeding: On the Changing Specifications, Technologies, and Designs for Landscape Maintenance”

Torsten Lange
ETH Zurich
“Queer ecologies of care: LGBT* community spaces between liberation and crisis, 1969–1999”

Sara Stevens
University of British Columbia
“Liquid Assets”