Rate My Professor Justin Owen

Justin Owen serves as Senior Lecturer in the School of Design and the Built Environment within the Faculty of Humanities at Curtin University, Perth. He is the Course Coordinator for the Undergraduate Architecture program and lectures in Architecture and Urban Design. Owen's academic career focuses on innovative teaching methods and student engagement in design education. He coordinates units such as ARCH1018 Architecture Methods 1 and facilitates field trips for urban planning projects, as highlighted in media coverage by The West Australian. His approach emphasizes hands-on, experiential learning to contrast with traditional studio practices constrained by prescribed outcomes and risk management.

In research and collaborative projects, Owen led the Bush Studio initiative, transporting architecture students to a bush site to construct using real materials, hand tools, carpentry joints, and zip ties, eschewing nails and screws. Inspired by Piers Taylor's Studio in the Woods and Auburn University's Rural Studio, the project promoted vertical integration across year groups, real-time collaboration, uncertainty, and creative freedom to inform virtual design practices. He contributed to Sustainable Built Environment National Research Centre (SBEnrc) reports, including 'Liveable Social and Affordable Higher Density Housing: Review of Literature and Case Studies' (2021) and 'A Liveability Framework for Social and Affordable Higher Density Housing.' Owen collaborated on the Perth Urban Research Lab's experiential learning environments for Complex Buildings Studio and Integrated Plan-Making units, launched in 2019. As part of the ViTooLs team with members from Curtin Medical School and School of Design and the Built Environment, he helped develop virtual reality tools for pharmacology education, securing the Faculty of Humanities 2019 Excellence in Teaching Award in the Innovation category and the 2021 Curtinnovation Humanities Prize. Owen has presented public lectures, including 'Using Generative AI in Design Studio' at Universitas Indonesia in 2023, and served on the 2021 UPSCALE jury.