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: digital cultures and intersectional practices related to built and natural environments; re-definitions of context-based approaches in professional practice; the role of photography within visual and architectural culture, especially in relation to theoretical and historical questions raised by digital technologies and media; and the relationship of architecture to the environment. We are currently focusing on relationships between land and architecture, and welcome applications that explore this topic across historical and contemporary registers.

Fellowships are open to researchers, architects, and curators pursuing 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 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 for a period of one to two months, with the goal of creating a community of researchers on site, particularly alongside our Doctoral Research Residency Program. Each Fellow will have access to a private office and receive a monthly stipend of CAD 5 000, 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.

The call for applications is now closed. The next call for the 2026 Research Fellowship Program will be issued in July 2025.

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 Nasrin Seraji (University College Dublin).

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.

Sarah Hearne
University of Colorado Denver
“Stabilizing an Eroding Image”

Ksenia Litvinenko
Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space
“Accommodating Extractivism: Soviet Mobile Architecture and Fly-in Flyout Urbanism in Western Siberia, 1968–1992”

Olga Touloumi
Bard College
“Building Worlds: An(other) History of Modern Architecture”

Megan Wiessner
University of Virginia
“Visualizing Mass Timber: Resource Aesthetics from the Industrial Past to the Digital Future”

2024 Research Fellows
2023 Research Fellows
2022 Research Fellows
2020-2021 Research Fellows
2019 Research Fellows

Visiting Scholars Program, 1997–2018