The research investigates the expanding repertoire of services offered by international, interdisciplinary, full-service architectural corporations. It unpacks the complex operations that provide architectural design along with conflict resolution, that bring environmental conservation into close proximity with mineral extraction, and that deliver infrastructure planning after military support—all as part of an expanded architectural service. Following an ethnographic approach, the research maps relations between operations of architectural design, planning, engineering, construction, governance, environment, energy, security, and military, that constitute these organizations. The project explores the synergies and tensions between traditional architectural and engineering projects and the increasing range of services offered. The research questions what is at stake for the professionals involved and the people and places impacted by this bringing together of interdisciplinary and governmental services into single architectural design corporations.

Ed Wall is academic lead at the University of Greenwich and visiting professor at Politecnico di Milano. In 2017 he was the City of Vienna Visiting Professor, a partnership with Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien), within the urban culture cohort, researching public space and the future–urban equity and the global agenda. He trained at Manchester Metropolitan University and at the City College of New York before completing a PhD at the Cities Programme of the London School of Economics. Wall’s research explores the intersection of environmental justice, urban equity, and design practice. He has written widely, in addition to guest-editing Architectural Design (AD), The Landscapists: Redefining Landscape Relations (Wiley, 2020), and coedited Landscape and Agency: Critical Essays (Routledge, 2017). In 2007 Wall founded the award-winning design and research practice Project Studio, with works published in the Guardian, Architects’ Journal, Building Design, Abitare, and ArchDaily. He has exhibited at the Van Alen Institute, Royal Academy, Building Centre, Garden Museum, and Des Moines Art Center.