Michael JASPER

Dr Michael Jasper is a registered architect, educator, and scholar based in Australia. He is Professor of Architecture at the University of Canberra where he teaches into major project studios, professional practice, history/theory, advanced architectural analysis, and other units across five built environment courses (undergraduate courses in architecture, building and construction management, interior architecture, landscape architecture and the postgraduate Master of Architecture course).

Immediately prior to joining the University, Jasper was a Partner at Cooper Robertson & Partners (2002-2011, New York) a prominent architecture and urban design firm. Jasper is deeply engaged with research, higher education, and the architecture profession locally, nationally, and internationally and has served on standing and ad hoc committees for the University of Canberra and with numerous outside entities.

His academic service includes membership of University Academic Board (2022-2024, 2019-2020, 2015-2016), University Outside Studies Committee (2017), and SAGE (Science in Australia Gender Equity) Athena SWAN, the University’s task force on gender equity (2016-2021). He is currently Chair of Faculty Board, Faculty of Arts and Design (2022-2024) and was a Member of Faculty Board, Faculty of Arts and Design (2016-2021). He was a Member of the Faculty of Arts and Design’s Built Environment Research & Innovation Group and is a Core Member of the Centre for Creative and Cultural Research (2019-) and a Member of the University Climate Change Adaptation & Resilience Research Network (2021-).

His professional service is extensive through standing committees, panels, and working groups on local and national matters. He was Chapter Councillor, ACT Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (2012-2018). He was Chair of a national working party (2015-2017) to develop and advocate for a new National Architecture Research Prize to be administered by the Australian Institute of Architects. He was Member (2012-2021) and Deputy Chair (2015-2021) of the National Education Committee, Australian Institute of Architects, the peak national advisory body on architecture education and research policies and accreditation procedures over years marked by significant change. He was the Australian Deans of Built Environment & Design’s inaugural nominee to the newly formed five-person national Accreditation Management Committee, Architects Accreditation Council of Australia (2017-2020) (AACA) and in that capacity was charged with reviewing and providing advice to the AACA on the policies, procedures and then implementation of a new national accreditation procedures for Australian, New Zealand post graduate architecture programs.

He is a standing Panel Member for the national accreditation procedures of postgraduate architecture programs Australia, New Zealand and served on National Visiting Panels to RMIT (2016), UNSW (2017), and UWS (2021).

He is founding Director (2016 -) of the Alastair Swayn Foundation, a charitable trust dedicated to research in and advancement of Australian design and architecture.

Jasper is an inaugural member of the Australian Architecture Exhibition Curatorial Committee for Australia’s contribution to the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 and Australian Showcase 2026, run by Creative Australia – the centrepiece of the Australian Government’s National Cultural Policy - and Royal Australian Institute of Architects.

Jasper serves as a Detail Assessor for the Australian Research Council, a Commonwealth entity within the Australian Government and the primary source of advice to the Government on investment in the national research effort. He was an inaugural member of the National Capital Design Review Panel, the peak advisory group to the Australian Government and ACT Government on major development proposals in areas of significance in Canberra as Australia’s national capital.

EXECUTIVE ROLES

Between 2002 and 2011 Jasper was Partner in the New York architecture and urban design firm of Cooper Robertson & Partners where he directed many of the firm’s major urban design and complex architecture projects as Partner including completion of some 24 research reports for state and federal government and not-for-profit bodies leading to $4.8 billion in building and infrastructure policy outcomes.  Different from most commercial firms, Cooper Robertson focuses on government and institutional clients at policy formulation, strategic planning, program development, feasibility, and institutional planning phases. Brought into the firm and made Partner as part of a corporate succession plan, Jasper oversaw with other partners growth of the firm including doubling of architecture staff from 60 to 120 full-time salaried staff and commensurate growth to some 240 contracted sub-consultants, an office annual operating budget increase from $10 to $18 million USD, with annual billing including sub consultants of $35 million USD (all in 2010 dollars), and diversification of project type.

Jasper’s change management responsibilities extended to expansion of geographic reach resulting in assignments undertaken across the United States, and out to Canada, South America, several European Union countries, the Middle East, and Africa. With other partners, Jasper oversaw commensurate business systems growth in design, technology, marketing, human resource management, and finance.   At Cooper Robertson he held executive leadership roles in corporate management and marketing committees in addition to project director responsibilities on complex institutional, government, and urban scale projects. While at Cooper Robertson Jasper directed many of the firms major institutional and urban scale projects. His clients included mayors and government agencies as they sought to address aging infrastructure, poorly designed public realms, changing land use, and new cultural programs. He counts among his clients Baltimore Development Corporation, City of Detroit, City of Miami, City of Sarasota, and Washington DC Office of City Planning. He directed projects for university presidents and their boards as they sought to imagine and plan for their futures including Presidents Richard Levin, Yale University; Jean-Lou Chameau, California Institute of Technology; Lee Bollinger, Columbia University; John DeGioia, Georgetown University; Samuel Stanley, State University of New York at Stony Brook; Donna Shalala, University of Miami; Ronald Peterson, Johns Hopkins Medicine.

RESEARCH

Prof Jasper is a specialist in 20th-century and contemporary architecture. He approaches architecture as a conceptual and material enquiry and his international research achievements rest on a large portfolio of academic and professional work that investigates three strands in architecture practice and theory. The first engages in the critical analysis and re-interpretation of modernist architectural discourses with a particular emphasis on the second half of the 20th century. The second focuses on theories of architecture composition at multiple scales and temporal settings, from individual buildings to group form, to precinct and city scales. The third strand concerns the conceptualisation and delivery of complex architectural and urban scale projects.

This research performance is expanded by contributions to the discovery and dissemination of new knowledge through his teaching and teaching-led research outputs in national and international settings and through academic and professional engagement activities. International and national refereed publications, grants, conference presentations, and committee work in peak bodies with national policy impact demarcate these contributions and ensure their impact.

He was Visiting Scholar (2015) at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation, and Visiting Scholar (2019, 2013) and Visiting Artist (2001) at the American Academy in Rome. He has published extensively in the discipline’s peak academic journals and lectured broadly giving peer-reviewed papers in conferences in Abu Dhabi, Adelaide, Antwerp, Auckland, Brisbane, Brussels, Canberra, Copenhagen, Ghent, Helsinki, Launceston, Melbourne, New York, Paris, Santiago, Seoul, Stockholm, Sydney, Tampere, València, Venice, and Wellington.

He is the author of Architectural Aesthetic Speculations, Deleuze on Art: The Problem of Aesthetic Constructions, Architectural Possibilities in the Work of Peter Eisenman, and Trajectories in Architecture: Plan, Sensation, Temporality.

Prof Jasper was Team Leader and First Investigator on “The Sustainable Shine Dome” awarded an Australian Government, Australian Heritage Grant delivered in collaboration with the Australian Academy of Science, GML Heritage and GHD Pty Ltd. He was Chief Investigator for the “Haig Park Activation” study led by Cathy Hope and recipient of a $1,002,204 research grant from the ACT Government.

He is currently working on several long-term projects including a revised account of modernist architectural knowledge, a history of the architectural plan as conceptual device, and investigations into resilient urban scale form with an initial focus on multi-unit housing and living infrastructures.

TEACHING

Jasper’s teaching practice has been delivered in a body of work distinctive for its intellectual rigor, scholarly depth, and discipline impact. In the period 2011-2024 his teaching has been delivered through advanced architecture studios, major project urban scale studios; advanced seminars in architecture formal analysis and composition. He has also led and taught in the professional practice stream at bother undergraduate and postgraduate levels and in the postgraduate restricted elective studies streams.  Prof Jasper’s teaching develops translational knowledge across three domains: form generation, architecture knowledge, and complex urban-scale design.

In the ten-year period 2015-2024 his teaching received an averaged overall student satisfaction score of 95%, well above the UC average for the same period.

Starting in 2011, he led the internationalization of the University of Canberra architecture program, initiating and securing funding for a series of postgraduate overseas research studios based in Beijing (2011, 2012), Venice (2014), and Tokyo (2015 - ongoing). The Tokyo-based postgraduate unit celebrated its fifth consecutive year in 2019 and is now an established and distinguishing part of the curriculum, interrupted in 2020 due to COVID travel restrictions and now reestablished in 2024 and led by others.

He led the professionally accredited postgraduate Master of Architecture degree as Course Convenor (2016-2021). In that capacity Prof Jasper steered the course in the implementation of a revised curriculum from 2016 and over the national accreditation reporting period of Semester 2 2016 through Semester 1 2018 resulting in the course receiving a full five-year professional accreditation with no substantive actions, an outstanding achievement.

Jasper led the undergraduate architecture courses as Acting Discipline Lead in the first half of 2019 and led the course as Discipline Lead Architecture over 2020-2021.

Member of Climate Change Adaptation Resilience and Recovery Network