Brian Rosa

MRP, City and Regional Planning, College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, Cornell University, 2008,
Supervisors:  John Forester and Ann Forsyth.

BA (Hons), Sociology, concentrating in Urban Development and Social Change, Clark University, 2004.

Beneath the arches:  Re-appropriating the spaces of infrastructure in Manchester

Supervisors: Maria Kaika and James Evans.

• Photographic and cartographic representations of the city
• Histories of socio-technical systems and networked infrastructures
• Geographies of the urban built environment
• Post-industrial cities and critical regeneration studies
• The works of Henri Lefebvre and the Situationists
• Experimental and multimedia methodologies

My area of interest is the role of transportation infrastructure on the social and material (re)production of urban space, particularly within the context of deindustrialisation, regeneration, and design practices.  In particular, I am examining the urban spaces produced by the industrial-era elevated railways of Manchester.

The aim of this research is to trace the enduring effects that railway infrastructure has had on the spatial and social shaping of Manchester, particularly in the post-industrial era, and the way that these infrastructural spaces are currently produced, appropriated, and transgressed. This case study will inform a critical intervention into literature on urban infrastructure, design theory and practice, and urban political ecology.

In addition to my work as an urbanist and geographer, I have experience as a photographer, curator and museum educator. I have exhibited my photography extensively in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Mexico. 

For up-to-date information on my work, including relevant publications, please visit my homepage.