Amber
Patterson-Ooi
I am a cultural anthropologist whose research interests include anthropological approaches to the built environment, landscape, material culture, and narrative.I hold a Bachelor of Arts (Anthropology), a Master of Arts by Research (Anthropology), and a Postgraduate Diploma in Production (Cultural Event Management).I am currently a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Design and Society at the University of Technology, Sydney.
Current research
Architects and landscape architects are increasingly required to address concerns about rising seas, resilient infrastructure, ecological restoration, more-than-human habitats, and hybrid land-water environments. Yet we know relatively little about how these ideas are assembled within design studios before they manifest as plans, diagrams, or built projects.This research project addresses that gap through an ethnography of design practice. Through long-term ethnographic fieldwork across Australian and international architectural practices, my research will examine the very processes and networks that are fundamentally entangled with placemaking at the confluence of land and water.The research contributes to interdisciplinary discourses on the built environment, architectural anthropology, and placemaking studies by examining how relations among land, water, human, and more-than-human worlds are actively produced within design practice before becoming material interventions in landscapes.
Works
Keynote Speaker:
Tbilisi Architecture Forum, September 2026.
Thinking With Water. *Conference Presentation:
Y-Conference, Yerevan, May 2026.
Inter-Surfacing. *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. *Journal Article:
Patterson-Ooi, A., & Araujo, N. (2022). Beyond Needle and Thread: Communicating and Contesting Identity in Haute Couture. M/C Journal, 25(4). Read here*Excerpts available upon request.