Deane Simpson

Curriculum vitae

Deane Simpson is an architect, urbanist and educator teaching and researching at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture, Copenhagen, where he is professor and leader of the masters program Urbanism and Societal Change. He is formerly unit master at the Architectural Association in London, professor at the Bergen School of Architecture (BAS), faculty member at the ETH (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) in Zürich, tutor at the Aarhus School of Architecture and Senior Researcher at the ETH SEC Future Cities Laboratory. Formerly an associate at Diller + Scofidio in New York, he worked on projects including Blur Building, Travelogues, Eyebeam, ICA Boston, Brasserie, and Rapid Growth. He received his doctorate from the ETH Zürich, masters degree in architecture from Columbia University in New York and Bachelor of Architecture with Honours from The University of Auckland. Deane is a recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, SOM Foundation Fellowship, Lucille Smyser Lowenfish Memorial Prize at Columbia University, and recipient of research grants from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction, SEC-Future Cities Laboratory, ETH TH-project, Statens Kunstfond, Dreyers Fond, Husbanken, Velux Fonden, Martha and Paul Kerrn-Jespersens Fond, 15. Juni Fonden, Danish Ministry of Housing, Urban and Rural Affairs, and Realdania.

His research addresses contemporary spatial problematics such as: the securitization of public space; the spatial transformation of welfare systems; the spatial implications of demographic transformation; problems of the informational and ‘smart’ city; and questions of social and environmental sustainability in urban and rural settings. His research has been published in journals such as Volume (Archis), Arbitare, Harvard Design Magazine, AD (Architectural Design), The Architectural Review, MONU, SAM and Archithese and in books such as Explorations in Architecture, Urban Transformations, Infrastructure as Architecture, Media and Urban Space, Imperfect Health: The Medicalization of Architecture, Deviations: A Manual of Architecture, and Our Happy Life. Architecture and Well-Being in the Age of Emotional Capitalism. He is the co-author of the monograph Diller + Scofidio (+ Renfro): The Ciliary Function (Skira 2007); author of Young-Old: Urban Utopias of an Aging Society (Lars Müller Publishers 2015); and co-editor of The City Between Freedom and Security (Birkhauser 2017); Forming Welfare (Danish Architectural Press 2017); Atlas of the Copenhagens (Ruby Press 2018); and Architectures of Dismantling and Restructuring. Spaces of Danish Welfare, 1970–Present (Lars Müller Publishers 2022). He is the co-author of the forthcoming Future Food Spaces (Birkhauser 2025) and The Agency of Drawing (Lars Müller Publishers 2025).