AMBER PATTERSON-OOI
cultural anthropologist
E: [email protected]
M: +995 551 532 546
About
I am a cultural anthropologist whose research interests include anthropological approaches to built environment, material culture, affect, and narrative as embodied phenomena.Before turning to social inquiry, I spent a decade working across theatre, fine arts, and cultural event management — a background that continues to inflect my attention to narrative, performance, and the bodily dimensions of space. I hold a Bachelor of Arts (Anthropology), a Postgraduate Diploma in Production (Cultural Event Management), and a Master of Arts by Research (Anthropology).I am a PhD candidate within the Faculty of Design and Society at University Technology, Sydney. Concurrently, I am Principal Researcher at Wei Yap Architects, where I work with the design team to integrate ethnographic and cultural analysis into architectural practice — a role that reflects my broader commitment to bringing anthropological thinking into direct dialogue with the built world.
research
PhD project title: Aqueous Terrains: Hydro-social Narratives of Contemporary Water Architecture.Drawing from fieldwork in Sydney and Amsterdam, my research utilises comparative ethnographic fieldwork and photovoice methods to explore the relationship between domestic spaces and hydro-sociality. Water and architecture are both laden with myriad social, political and ontological densities. Water and architecture also share conceptualisations that circulate through language, through religious, spiritual, and cosmological thinking, and through embodied practices of inhabitation. Conceived of as an extension of self, the architectural materiality of home, situated at the edge of, or on, water provides an interface for the human-water relationship. Houses, when encountered on or at the edge of water, are figured as an intimate threshold where liquid, home, and the body transgress both material and conceptual edges and boundaries.My research aims to comprehend the narratives of domestic placemaking at the confluence of land and water. Examining life at the edges offers a critical reorientation - shifting the discourse of water from techo-managerial approaches to meanings of spatial praxis and works towards much needed transdisciplinary research.Through the application of ethnographic methods to the discipline of architecture, the research offers a methodological contribution through an example of how qualitative, humanistic inquiry can enrich built environment scholarship. Therein, the project holds the potential to inform design and planning of future waterfront housing and water-sensitive precincts, especially in cities like Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane. This research will also make a valuable contribution to architectural theory and practice by developing an empirically grounded account of how specific design decisions may shape lived experience in water-proximate environments. This has direct implications for the design of future waterfront housing in the context of climate adaptation concerns.This project is supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.
WORKS & PUBLICATIONS
Master's Thesis: Love, Grief, and Materiality: Interior Narratives and the Making of Home in Singapore, Master of Arts by Research (Anthropology), La Trobe University 2026. Chapter excerpts available on request.Conference Presentation: Inter-Surfacing, Y-Conference, Yerevan, 2026. Available on request.Journal Article: Patterson-Ooi, A., & Araujo, N. (2022). Beyond Needle and Thread: Communicating and Contesting Identity in Haute Couture. M/C Journal, 25(4).