The Centre for the Study of the Production of the Built Environment (ProBE)

Christine Wall
Linda Clarke

ProBE IS A multi-faculty research centre spanning Westminster Business School (WBS) and the School of Architecture and Cities (A+C). Established in 2010, it provides a rich programme of research and related activities, including oral history, film, exhibitions, and seminars. It provides a focus for interdisciplinary and international activity related to the social processes underpinning the production of the built environment.

Director Linda Clarke (WBS) is currently engaged in the project: ‘Climate Literacy for Construction: Integrating climate literacy into the construction trades’, funded by the Canadian government until 2025. In June 2022 Linda was instrumental in organising a visit from a delegation of 50 North American tradeswomen, in partnership with Tradeswomen Building Bridges (TBB), a network of North American women whose vision is to build transnational solidarity among women working in the trades.

Director Professor Christine Wall continues her focus on oral histories of the built environment with a new project, ‘“If I had a hammer”: Feminist activism and the built environment in Britain 1975-2000’, funded by an Emeritus Leverhulme Fellowship 2022-2024. This project aims to chronicle a vibrant period of feminist activism by recording the working lives of many women who were involved. Co-Director Nick Beech, Christine Wall and Linda Clarke are all affiliated with the ongoing AHRC research project ‘Translating Ferro / Transforming Knowledges of Architecture, Design and Labour’ for the New Field of Production Studies, based in the Universities of Newcastle and Sao Paulo. Current PhD student, Mustafa Abedmousa, will soon submit his thesis, ‘The productivity of the construction sector in Palestine’. While in 2022 Lena Stina Andersson, PhD candidate at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, became a ProBE visiting scholar to undertake research at the Victoria and Albert Museum for her thesis: ‘Who Builds a National Museum? Architectural Transformation and Material Change from the 19th to the 21st century’.

We continue to welcome PhD candidates and visiting scholars interested in the areas of research covered by ProBE.