William M Taylor

Professor William M (Bill) Taylor is a native of Louisiana, growing up amidst the distinctive wetlands, antebellum ruin and political quagmire of America's Deep South. He obtained a Bachelor of Architecture with Honours degree from Louisiana State University (1984) where he came to understand buildings by means of philosophy, literature and humanities-based learning, and to challenge fundamentalist thinking of whatever denomination. He obtained a Graduate Diploma in History and Theory from the Architectural Association in London (1987) where he turned these proclivities to study architecture in relation to sociology and politics, art and power. His subsequent move to Australia encouraged additional interests in landscape theory and environmental studies. He obtained a PhD from UWA (1995) with a thesis that identified historical and theoretical grounds for reasoning about nature and the built environment.  He has been a Registered Architect since 1986.

Bill is a founding member of the Eco-Matters research group in the School of Design at UWA.

Professor Taylor served as his School's first Discipline Chair (Architecture), Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning), Associate Dean (Research and Research Training), Graduate Research Coordinator, and Member of the University Promotions and Tenure Committee.

Professor Taylor has researched widely and published frequently. His research outcomes include a monograph and co-authored books, edited volumes and special journal issues, as well as numerous refereed journal articles and published conference papers, catalogue essays and design reviews. He writes on subjects including history and theories of the built environment (interdisciplinary and humanities research); buildings in social and political contexts; philosophy and architecture; and catastrophe and disaster studies.  An additional back-burner project is about architecture, ships and the sea.  He and his collaborators have written for Ashgate, Routledge and Bloomsbury, among top-shelf publishers.

The Research Output that follows begins with a brief selection of highlighted works of an interdisciplinary or collaborative nature that were particularly meaningful or formative for their authors or editors.

Small Print: Other published outcomes (such as edited special journal issues) may not appear under the following headings by publication type (Article, Chapter, Conference Paper, etc) for they do not conform to the dictates of research management and commerically-acquired staff profile software, just as Books (authored or edited) are sadly relegated to the back of the bus these days.  Likewise, some Projects are described as finished owing to funding and reporting arrangments whereas, to the contrary, the lines of inquiry they portend remain very much alive, with collaborations ongoing and additional publications forthcoming.