Background and experience
Matthew Dylan Anderson is an architect, educator and artistic researcher whose work investigates how architecture, material practices, and technology shape relationships between people and their environments. His teaching and research focus on ecological transition, spatial experience, material experimentation, and architectural responses to changing environmental and social conditions.
Since joining AHO in 2016, he has developed and taught master studios and seminars, supervised diploma projects, and contributed to the development of AHO’s prediploma and diploma pedagogy. His work integrates architectural design, artistic research, and ecological inquiry through field-based investigation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and experimental making.
He plays an active role in strengthening AHO’s international academic networks through Erasmus+ and Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) collaborations, including partnerships with UCLouvain LOCI Bruxelles, Università Iuav di Venezia, ENSA La Réunion, and the Iceland University of the Arts. These collaborations connect AHO students and staff to international teaching and research environments concerned with ecological transition, and architectural and territorial transformation.
His current research and teaching examine adaptive modes of dwelling in conditions of ecological uncertainty, combining architectural research, artistic methods, and field-based studies in Norway, Iceland, La Réunion, Venice, and Japan.
Through courses and collaborative projects, he has established partnerships linking AHO with academic institutions, public-sector actors, professional practice, and civil-society organisations. These collaborations have generated joint teaching activities, workshops, exhibitions, publications, and built projects addressing sustainability, democratic and inclusive urban development, health and wellbeing, and the transformation of cities and territories.
His work has been presented internationally, including the Works and Words Biennale of Artistic Research in Architecture (2026), Oslo Architecture Triennale (2022), Venice Architecture Biennale (2023), and international forums for practice-based and artistic research in architecture.
Alongside his academic work, he maintains an architecture and ceramic practice based in Oslo and working internationally, which informs his teaching and research through ongoing engagement with construction, material processes, craft-based experimentation, and site-responsive design.
He has a bachelor of design studies from the University of Queensland, Australia (2002), and a master of architecture from AHO (2011).
Areas of expertise:
- Ecological transition, architectural and territorial transformation
- Artistic research and experimental pedagogy
- International field-based learning
- Interdisciplinary collaboration between architecture, landscape/territories, art, and environmental humanities
- Erasmus+ partnership and mobility development
Areas of responsibility
Matthew is responsible for master-level studio teaching, thematic and practical seminars, and diploma supervision at AHO’s Institute of Architecture. He also coordinates AHO’s participation in the Erasmus+ BIP Dynamic Landscapes (2026-2028), developed in collaboration with ENSA La Réunion and Iceland University of the Arts. The program connects architectural education, artistic research, and field-based inquiry through shared teaching, workshops, publications, and international mobility activities.
Selected responsibilities:
- Development and leadership of Studio Positions (24 ECTS, 2016-present)
- Coordination BIP collaborations Dynamic Landscapes, How Do We Teach?
- Development and leadership of Ecology and Economy (6 ECTS)
- Development and leadership of Experimental Construction: In-situ 1:1 (6 ECTS seminar)
- Prediploma and diploma supervision (2016-present)
- Prediploma coordinator (Spring 2026)
- Service as health and safety representative, and on employment, programme, and admissions committees
Teaching
Matthew’s teaching is closely connected to scientific and artistic research, creating a continuous feedback loop between fieldwork, material experimentation, critical reflection, and architectural design pedagogy. A central component of his approach is the cultivation of critical thinking through project-based learning, where students engage with hands-on making, situated fieldwork, collaborative processes, and external actors including municipalities, cultural institutions, community organisations, and professional practice.
Master Studio: Studio Positions (AHO) explores ecological transition, collective modes of dwelling, speculative design methods, architectural and territorial transformation, and architecture’s relationship to environmental uncertainty, working across scales from the house to the territory.
Course series:
- Matter and Motion (2025-2026)
- Speculative Futures (2023-2025)
- Radical Architecture (2021-2023)
- Coexistence (2019-2021)
Master Seminars: Ecology and Economy (AHO) is a thematic seminar combining ecological enquiry, resource systems, economic processes, and architectural design. The course has involved collaboration with Weitzman School of Design (University of Pennsylvania), Oxford Brookes University, GRID-Arendal, NOAH, Aarhus School of Architecture, and Panasonic, linking artistic research, policy, industry, and civil-society perspectives directly to student learning.
Experimental Construction: In-situ 1:1 (AHO, UCLouvain) is a practical joint course that combines artistic research, material experimentation, and full-scale construction. The course has resulted in small public buildings in Brussels and Oslo, developed through collaborations including Oslo Badstuforening, Sofienbergprosjekt, and Byantropologene. The Oslo project – a sauna, contributes to ongoing work on democratic and inclusive urban development.
Prediploma and diploma supervision: At AHO since 2016. Two of Matthew's AHO-diploma students have been awarded the student prize Renzo Piano World Tour Award (RPWT). Matthew also supervises master thesis internationally.
Prediploma coordinator: Spring 2026
International teaching and workshops: Matthew has taught as an invited guest lecturer and studio contributor at UCLouvain LOCI Bruxelles, Università Iuav di Venezia, ENSA La Réunion, and ENSA Paris-Val de Seine. He has also co-developed international workshops and pedagogical collaborations with institutions including the German Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2023) and the Oslo Architecture Triennale Academy (2022).
Teaching outcomes have been disseminated through exhibitions, public presentations, and international cultural platforms including Architecture Fringe, Glasgow (2018), Espace Culturel Sudel Fuma, Saint-Paul, La Réunion (2024), and Oslo Architecture Triennale (2022).
Research
Matthew combines scientific and artistic research with architectural enquiry and engaged practice to investigate how architecture mediates relationships between people, materials, territories, and ecological processes. Working across architecture, territories, craft, environmental humanities, and artistic research, he develops transdisciplinary methods that connect fieldwork, drawing, model-making, digital scanning and fabrication, ceramics, and experimental construction.
His current research examines how human lives, architecture, and environments continually co-constitute one another through field-based studies in La Réunion, Venice, and Japan.
Research findings are communicated through public exhibitions, lectures, publications, workshops, and collaborative teaching formats, strengthening the integration of scientific and artistic research, and education.
His research has been supported through Erasmus+ initiatives and the Sasakawa Foundation, with externally funded research integrated directly into studio teaching, seminars, and student fieldwork activities. This work contributes to ecological transition, sustainability, interdisciplinary collaboration, public dissemination of architectural knowledge, and engagement with challenges ranging from the Nordic context to global environmental transformation.
Matthew is active in international peer review, including the scientific committee of the International Conference on Structures and Architecture (ICSA) and CLARA Architecture Research Review (ULB). He contributes to AHO’s research groups Artistic Research / Creative Ecologies, and CRAITR – Creative Practice, Experimental AI, and Emerging Technologies Research, and collaborates with ENSA La Réunion’s GREAT – Groupe de Recherche sur les Espaces et Architectures Tropicaux.
He is a PhD candidate at UCLouvain LOCI Bruxelles, at the Uses & Spaces research lab, supervised by professor Gérald Ledent.
Projects
- 2022-2024, Europe in Transition (Erasmus+)
- 2023, POP Europe (Erasmus+)
- 2023-2025, Rural Areas Facing Climate Change (Erasmus+)
- 2025, How do we teach? (Erasmus+)
- 2026-2028, Dynamic Landscapes (Erasmus+)
- Studio Positions 2016-2026 (OBOS financed book project)