Dr  Magda Sibley - Personal details

Role: Senior Lecturer in Architectural Studies

Email: magda.sibley@manchester.ac.uk

Tel: 0161 275-0316

Location: Humanities Bridgeford Street-1.14
School of Environment and Development
The University of Manchester
Manchester
M13 9PL

Websites

• School of Environment and Development

Dr Magda Sibley is an Architect and a Senior Lecturer in Architecture. She joined the University of Manchester in January 2010. She previously held permanent positions at the Schools of Architecture of the Universities of Liverpool (2001- 2009) and Huddersfield (1994 - 2001). Dr Sibley graduated as an Architect and Urbanist from Algiers School of Architecture (EPAU). She completed a PhD in Architecture at Sheffield University School of Architecture. She is an affiliated member of the RIBA.

Dr Sibley has been researching the transformations and adaptations of North African and Middle Eastern heritage cities into the 21st Century conditions.  Focusing on the courtyard house and the Islamic public bathhouse or hammams, her research examines how these two building typologies, contributed in the past to cultural, social and environmental urban sustainability and how these can inform contemporary urban and architectural interventions.  Adaptations and re-interpretations of these vernacular buildings are also being investigated in the context of the formation of new hybrid architecture, combining active and passive ways of heating / cooling and lighting buildings. She has been awarded various research grants from Liverpool and Manchester Universities, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, EPSRC and the EU and has established an International reputation with her research on the historic public baths of North Africa and the Middle East.  Dr Sibley has been a member of the scientific committee and chair of sessions at various international conferences. She has been invited as a guest speaker at various International conferences and Schools of Architecture in Italy, France, Malta, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. Dr Sibley is fluent in French and Arabic.  She has successfully supervised seven PhD research theses and is currently supervising five PhD students.   Dr Sibley teaches architecture and urbanism, linking ongoing research projects to the agenda of the design studio. She is part of the “Continuity of Architecture” Design Studio”, and is increasing students' awareness of buildings as part of urban landscapes and contexts rather than single sculptural objects. She is currently working with 5th and 6th year architecture students on contemporary interventions on heritage sites in the Lake District in the UK and in Venice in Italy.

From 2011, Dr. Sibley will be the director of postgraduate research at the Manchester Architecture Research Centre. She is also responsible for admissions to the BA Architecture programme.