PhD student in Architecture with focus on Critical Studies and Gender

We are seeking a doctoral student for a research project focusing on feminist and queer approaches to architecture, performance, and spatial justice. The project is a collaboration between the Umeå School of Architecture (UMA), UmArts, and the Gender Research School at Umeå Centre for Gender Studies (UCGS), at Umeå University. The application deadline is 30 January 2026.

Umeå School of Architecture (UMA) offers an international and design-oriented academic environment where architectural practice and critical research are closely integrated. The department consists of approx. 40 staff members of which four are doctoral students. For more information about the department, see www.umu.se/en/umea-school-of-architecture.

UmArts supports interdisciplinary research across artistic and other academic fields, promotes high-quality public dissemination and engagement, and hosts interdisciplinary postdoctoral research fellows. For more information about UmArts, see www.umarts.se.

Umeå Centre for Gender Studies (UCGS) has, since 2001, co-financed doctoral students across all faculties at Umeå University. A doctoral student affiliated with the Gender Research School at UCGS gains access to a unique and dynamic research training environment, in which more than 20 doctoral students are currently participating. For more information about the Gender Research School, see www.umu.se/en/umea-centre-for-gender-studies/the-gender-research-school.

Project description

Architecture has only partly integrated feminist and gender perspectives, even though scholarship since the 1980s (e.g. Colomina, Agrest, Kahn, Rendell) has shown how architecture reflects and produces cultural and bodily norms. More recent work (Petrescu, Frichot, Preciado, Krasny, Gissen) demonstrates the need to expand architectural research further through feminist, queer, and crip perspectives. These perspectives give possibilities to explore gendered, sexualized, and ableist dimensions of space and urban form, and re-think architecture through bodies and practices previously excluded from its canon.

This PhD project investigates how choreographic and embodied practices can act as tactics of empowerment, resistance, and spatial redefinition. Architectural discourse has often relied on standardized bodily models that mask the diversity of lived, gendered, and capacitated experiences. In response, this project explores how a multiplicity of bodies inhabits and reimagine space through site-specific performance. Attentive to practices that negotiate or unsettle historically gendered modes of visibility in public space, it also engages choreographic approaches that move beyond such binaries, proposing alternative spatial, relational, and aesthetic strategies. Taking as a point of departure the work of choreographers whose practices emerge from situated experiences in urban environments, the project considers how these forms of embodiment challenge historical exclusions and generate new ways of inhabiting and understanding space. Their choreographies foreground spatial dimensions of movement, offering architecture an expanded approach to performance as a mode of spatial and aesthetic knowledge.

The doctoral research project will combine archival work, workshops, and site-specific interventions to test how embodied practices can inform architectural and urban imaginaries of justice and inclusion. 

The doctoral project will be embedded in UMA’s research group Infrastructures of Care, an interdisciplinary environment addressing relational, situated, experiential and justice-oriented approaches to architecture. As a member of this group, the doctoral student will participate in seminars, shared research activities, and ongoing projects addressing care-related approaches in architecture. For more information about the research group, see www.umu.se/en/research/groups/infrastructures-of-care-architecture-livable-lives-and-just-environments.

The position is open to applicants with a master’s degree in architecture. We are looking for a motivated and creative doctoral student with an interest in feminist, queer, and crip theories, as well as in embodied and spatial practices. As a doctoral student, you will have a great deal of influence over the direction of the project and thus use your creativity and intellect to shape it.

Eligibility criteria

To meet the general entry requirements for doctoral studies, you are required to have completed a second-cycle degree or have completed course requirements of at least 240 ECTS credits of which at least 60 ECTS credits are at second-cycle level or have an equivalent education from abroad.

To fulfil the specific entry requirements to be admitted for studies at third-cycle level in architecture, you are required to hold a master’s degree in architecture, or demonstrate equivalent qualifications, with at least 90 ECTS credits in architecture. Of these, at least 15 ECTS credits must be at the second-cycle level in a specialization relevant to the proposed doctoral project, such as architectural design, architectural theory, urbanism, architectural technology, gender studies, or critical theory.

We are looking for a candidate with a strong interest in research, and the ability to work independently as well as in a team to accomplish the required tasks. You are proficient in both verbal and written English.

Desirable qualifications

Experience with archival research and familiarity with choreographic or performance-based approaches is considered an advantage. Previous knowledge of gender studies and architectural theory is also an advantage.

Terms of employment

The appointment aims at a doctoral degree, and the main task of the PhD student is to pursue their doctoral studies, which includes participation in research projects as well as postgraduate courses. Engagement in graduate and postgraduate teaching is recommended (up to 20%). Such engagement will extend the employment in proportion to the departmental service.

The planned start date for the employment is 1 September 2026. The employment is limited to four years full-time or up to five years when it includes part-time teaching. The salary level is determined according to the established salary level for doctoral employment.

The successful candidate will be based in Umeå and expected to be present in Umeå to fulfil their role.

Application

Your application must include the following:

• A cover letter (max. 2 pages) describing your research interests, motivation for applying for the position and envisioned contribution to UMA, UmArts, and UCGS research environment (max. 2 pages).
• Curriculum Vitae with a list of published work including journal papers, conference papers, technical reports, exhibitions, artistic projects, architectural projects, and/or grey literature, and contact information to at least three references.
• Up to three selected work samples from the publication list that engage with embodied and spatial practices, and/or gender or feminist theory.
• A short project idea outline of max. 2 pages which outlines suggested research questions, data and methods aligned with the research project presented above, and which describes how the proposal contributes to the current literature in the field.
• Degree certificates.
• Bachelor and/or Master’s theses.
• A portfolio of previous professional and/or academic work and describes your role in each project (max. 20 pages).
• Applicants with a degree from a non-Swedish university are encouraged to provide their results from the GMAT, GRE and/or TOEFL tests, if available.

The application should be written in Swedish or English and submitted via Umeå University’s recruitment system Varbi. The last day to apply is 30 January 2026.

Please note that incomplete applications will not be considered.

More information

For more information contact the Project Leader, Associate Professor Daniel Movilla Vega, email: daniel.movilla@umu.se, or phone: +46 (0) 90 786 72 25 or the Head of Research Group, Professor Ebba Högström, email: ebba.hogstrom@umu.se, or phone: +46 (0) 90 786 90 11.

More about Umeå School of Architecture

Umeå School of Architecture (UMA) at Umeå University is one of the four schools of architecture in Sweden. Established in 2009, UMA is situated at the Umeå Arts Campus, in purpose-built facilities on the banks of the Ume River. Since its founding, the school has developed into an international environment for architectural exploration and critical inquiry, integrating education, research, and artistic practice.

UMA offers a five-year Architecture Programme and a Master’s Programme in Architecture and Urban Design, with approximately 300 students from Sweden and abroad. The school fosters experimental and research-informed approaches to architecture, with an emphasis on ecological, social, and spatial justice. More information is available at www.umu.se/en/umea-school-of-architecture.

Umeå University's Arts Campus brings together several creative and research-intensive institutions, including Umeå Institute of Design, Umeå Academy of Fine Arts, Bildmuseet, and the science centre Curiosum. The campus provides a beautiful and vibrant setting where students, researchers, and practitioners collaborate across artistic and scientific disciplines.