Anoma Pieris

Anoma Pieris is Professor of Architecture and Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne's Melbourne School of Design. She holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Moratuwa, an MPhil in geography from the University of Melbourne, and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. Throughout her career at the University of Melbourne, Pieris has held significant research leadership roles, including leading the Architecture and Industry project, which examines migrant contributions to postwar nation-building through case studies such as the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme. She also directs investigations into the Architecture of Confinement, focusing on Pacific War incarceration camps.

Pieris's research explores the nexus between architecture, citizenship, and postcolonial politics, emphasizing histories of migration, construction labour, human displacement, refugee camps, and border mobilities. She advocates for the agency of subaltern subjects across comparative geographies. Her major publications include Hidden Hands and Divided Landscapes: A Penal History of Singapore’s Plural Society (University of Hawai'i Press, 2009), Architecture and Nationalism in Sri Lanka: The Trouser Under the Cloth (Routledge, 2012), Architecture on the Borderline: Boundary Politics and Built Space (edited, Routledge, 2019), The Architecture of Confinement: Incarceration Camps of the Pacific War (co-authored with Lynne Horiuchi, Cambridge University Press, 2022), and Immigrant Industry: Building Postwar Australia (co-edited, URO Press, 2024). She co-edited a theme issue on Immigration, Architecture and Industry for the journal Fabrications. Pieris was awarded an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (2015-2018) for her project on the temporal boundaries of World War II internment and migrant camps. In 2023, she was named a Fellow of the Society of Architectural Historians. Her scholarship has influenced discussions on postcolonial architectural histories and migrant labour in the built environment.

Professional Email: apieris@unimelb.edu.au