Naomi Stead


Naomi Stead is an architectural academic, scholar and critic, based in Melbourne, Australia. She is currently the Head of the Architecture Department at Monash University Faculty of Art Design & Architecture, Australia.

Early years and education

Naomi Stead was born in February, 1975, and grew up in Adelaide, South Australia. She studied architecture at the Louise Laybourne School of Architecture, University of South Australia, graduating with a Bachelor of Architecture with first class honours in 1998. Stead's PhD, ‘On the Object of the Museum and its Architecture’, was conferred by The University of Queensland in 2004.

Academic career

Stead began her academic career at the University of Technology, Sydney and became a research fellow at the Research Centre ATCH, University of Queensland in 2009, later becoming a senior research fellow. In 2015 she took up an academic position as Associate Professor at the School of Architecture, University of Queensland. In 2017, Stead joined Monash University's Department of Architecture before becoming the Head of Department in 2018. Stead has also undertaken a number of research fellowships, including Postdoctoral Fellow, Advanced Cultural Studies Institute of Sweden, Linkoping University, and Honorary Visiting Scholar, School of Architecture, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium.
Stead describes her academic research as engaged with the following areas:
Stead was a researcher with John Macarthur on the project The Cultural Logic of Queensland Architecture: Place, Taste and Economy.

Equity and Diversity in the Australian Architecture Profession: women, work and leadership

Stead initiated and led the Australian Research Council funded project Equity and Diversity in the Australian Architecture Profession: Women, Work and Leadership. This involved eight researchers – Stead, Karen Burns, Justine Clark, Gill Matthewson, Amanda Roan, Gillian Whitehouse, Julie Willis and Sandra Kaji-O'Grady – and sought map women’s participation in the architectural profession in Australia, to understand why women are under-represented at senior management level, and to identify concrete strategies for change. The project resulted in scholarly publications and in the advocacy and activism project. This also led to the Parlour Guides to Equitable Practice.

Architectural criticism

Architectural criticism by Stead has been published in a wide range of professional journals and magazines, including Architecture Australia, Artichoke, Monument, Architecture Review Australia, Pol Oxygen and Australian Design Review. She was a contributing editor to Architecture Australia from 2003 to 2012 and is a regular columnist for Places magazine. Stead has also written scholarly work on the history and future of architectural criticism and edited the anthology Semi-detached: Writing, representation and criticism in architecture.

Contributions to public and academic culture

Stead contributes to public and academic culture in a range of ways. She is an expert member of the National Committee for Gender Equity of the Australian Institute of Architects. She has edited academic journals, including Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research,with Prof Johan Fornas and Dr Martin Fredriksson; Architectural Theory Review, with Dr Lee Stickells and Prof Michael Tawa, and was on the Executive Committee of the Society of Architectural Historians of Australia and New Zealand from 2003 to 2005, and elected SAHANZ President from 2017-2019.
Stead has also convened and co-convened a number of conferences. These include:
Stead also regularly speaks at public and professional events on architecture and the built environment and has done a number of radio interviews.

Exhibitions

Stead has curated a number of architectural exhibitions: