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Dr Sotirios Varsamis

Course Leader
Course Leader BA (Hons) Interior Architecture
London School of Film, Media and Design
sotirios.varsamis@uwl.ac.uk

Sotirios Varsamis is an architect (ARB) with a long background in architectural design and interdisciplinary research. 

He holds a PhD in Architecture and a MSc in Architectural History & Theory by the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL completed with a full-time scholarship for post-graduate studies by the Hellenic State’s Scholarship Foundation (IKY).

He has designed and supervised residential buildings and interiors and was involved for many years with retail and product design companies like Selfridges and Design House Stockholm.

He has done editorial work for print and online with magazines such as Wallpaper* and has taught at places such as Coventry University and Westminster.

Some of his latest projects involve film, wellness design, and installations, while his practice and research work has been presented and exhibited in the UK and abroad.

  • Qualifications

    Dipl Ing (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki); MSc (Bartlett School of Architecture, University Collge London); PhD (Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London).

  • Memberships

    Architects Registration Board (ARB)

Teaching

I am an architect (ARB) with a long background in architectural design and interdisciplinary research. I hold a PhD in Architecture and a MSc in Architectural History & Theory by the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL completed with a full-time scholarship for post-graduate studies by the Hellenic State’s Scholarship Foundation (IKY). I have designed and supervised residential buildings and interiors and was involved for many years with retail and product design companies such as Selfridges and Design House Stockholm.

Research

  • Research and publications

    Sotirios Varsamis research specialization fields include an original approach and study of textual and architectural spatiality. With his research work he has defined the term spatial writing, a tradition that examines text’s use as an active design tool by looking in Orphic poetry, Platonic theory, Latin sign-theory, mnemonics, structural and post-structural linguistics and writers and architects like Optatianus Porfirius, Vitruvius, Giordano Bruno, Georges Perec, Stéphane Mallarmé, Jacques Polieri and Daniel Libeskind.
     
     
    PUBLICATIONS
     
    November 2016. Towards the Flame, [Buildings on Fire, Towards a New Approach to Urban Memory], Engaged Urbanism, Cities and Methodologies, ed. Ben Campkin & Ger Duijzings, I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd, London, 2016.
     
    September 2016. Spatial Writing and Non-Linear Architectural Narratives, Dialogical Designs (Studio as Book Series), ed. Constance Lau, University of Westminster, Department of Architecture, Sept. 2016.
     
    February 2012. The Tradition of Spatial Writing. The Case of the Palindrome between Literature and Architecture. FOOTPRINT, Delft School of Design Journal, 10-11, Volume 6, Architecture Culture and the Question of Knowledge: Doctoral Research Today, Spring 2012.
     
    August 2010. Spatial Palindromes / Palindromic Spaces: Spatial Devices in Vitruvius, Mallarmé, Polieri, Perec and Libeskind. Doctoral thesis, The Bartlett, UCL. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/20479/

  • Conferences

    April 2019 – The construction of darkness in non-lineal poetic forms. Paper presentation and film screening. The Thrill of the Dark: Heritages of Fear, Fascination and Fantasy. Department of Ethnology, Stockholm University Sweden, Collaborative for Cultural Heritage Management and Policy, University of Illinois, USA, Ironbridge International Institute for Cultural Heritage, University of Birmingham. 
     
    September 2015 – Raindance Film Festival. From VR to AR to TR – A Brave New Narrative World. Invited speaker. https://www.raindance.org/
     
    April 2014 – Cities Methodologies 2014: Buildings on Fire: Towards a New Approach to Urban Memory. Invited session chair. Woburn Studios, Slade School of Art. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/urbanlab/events/CM2014-buildings-on-fire#.U1vfBFIIDXI.facebook
     
    April/May 2014 – Towards the Flame. Sound installation. Cities Methodologies, Buildings on Fire exhibition, Woburn Studios, Slade School of Art. 
     
    November 2013 – Constraints in the Works of Oulipo and the Experience of Space between Literature and Architecture. Paper presentation. Generative Constraints Conference, Royal Holloway University of London. https://generativeconstraints.tumblr.com
     
    September/October 2010 – Spatial Palindromes 1. video installation. Locus Solus, Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece. http://outoftheboxintermedia.org/#/89
     
    November 2009 – Spatial Palindromes 1. video installation. Locus Solus, Byzantine & Christian Museum, Athens, Greece. http://outoftheboxintermedia.org/#/89
     
    April 2008 – Stéphane Mallarmé’s Un Coup de Dés as Room of Thoughts. Paper presentation. Architexture, Exploring Textual and Architectural Spaces, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.
     
    December 2006 – EROS / SORE. Video screening and presentation. Research Spaces 3, Topos Event: The Moving Image between Art and Architecture. Bartlett School of Architecture and Slade School of Arts, UCL, London. 
     
    December 2006 – Spatial Palindromes 1. / Palindromic Spaces. Paper presentation. PhD seminars, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, London.
     
    November 2005 – The Creation of Space in Georges Perec’s Literature. Paper presentation. Research Spaces, Materialization of Practice in Art & Architecture, Bartlett School of Architecture and Slade School of Arts, UCL, London.
     
    September 2004 – The Mysteries of the Graces. Paper presentation. PhD seminars, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, London.
     
    September 2004 – EROS / SORE. Video project, commissioned by Semioteque, London.
     
    August 2003 – Spatial Palindromes 1. Film screening. Ritzy cinema, London.
     
    June 2003 – Spatial Palindromes 1. Film screening and slides installation. Costa Urbana, Notting Hill Arts Club, London.
     
    May 2003 – Spatial Palindromes 1. Film screening. Semioteque, London.

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