The Laboratory for Inhabitable Theories and Research in Architecture | LITRA was founded by artist/architect Claudia Westermann in 2001. It has since then offered a platform for projects at the threshold of art and architecture, many of which have involved interdisciplinary collaborations beyond art and design with writers, music composers and scientists.
Inhabitable Theories is a research and design project that generally actualises in the form of performative lectures. The project questions both the existence and the relevance of a separation between theory and practice as it transforms into a discourse on spatial design that is both theory and practice. Theory becomes thought, text, and voice, at last, reflecting space – a kind of meta-architecture that is radically open as it allows for a form of appropriation that is recreation.
According to the “Inhabitable Theories” project, spatial practice is understood as a performative process that creates borders rather than borderlines, limits rather than limitations, and is, therefore, a discipline of radical communication that always seeks to extend itself towards an Other – the unknown – addressing it without previously quantifying it to render it provable. Spatial practice is always critical of the rules it has defined.
Claudia Westermann is an internationally renowned scholar, artist and architect, licensed with the German Chamber of Architects. She is a managing co-editor of the visual arts journal Technoetic Arts and Vice President of the American Society for Cybernetics (ASC). She has received awards for her practice and teaching, including two provincial and three national awards related to studio teaching and a county-level award for her Philosophy of Art module. Dedicated to interdisciplinary systemic research, she most recently received the 2024 Margaret Mead Prize from the American Society for Cybernetics.
Holding post-graduate degrees in Architecture and Media Art from the Karlsruhe University of Technology (KIT) and the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design (HfG) at the Center for Art and Media (ZKM) in Germany, respectively, Claudia Westermann obtained a PhD from the Centre for Advanced Inquiry in Integrative Arts (CAiiA), Planetary Collegium, University of Plymouth, UK, for a thesis bridging contemporary interactive art, poetry and critical spatial practice. Her PhD was supervised by the renowned pioneer in telematic art, Prof. Roy Ascott. Prof. Mike Phillips acted as second supervisor.
Informed by second-order cybernetics, Claudia Westermann's research actualises in interdisciplinary projects concerned with the ecologies, poetics, technologies and philosophies of art and architectural design. In recent years, Claudia Westermann has increasingly engaged in work that integrates contemporary systemic and traditional Chinese positions. Her works have been widely exhibited and presented, including at the Venice Biennale (Architecture), the Moscow International Film Festival, the ISEA Symposium for the Electronic Arts, and the Center for Art and Media (ZKM) in Karlsruhe, Germany. Claudia Westermann's portfolio also includes site-specific works for public space, such as Seats for Seeing and Symphony for the Everyday: Sunset Sonata, both of which were realised in collaboration with colleagues at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University.
Working in theory and practice, Claudia Westermann's portfolio includes built works and edited journal issues, over 50 exhibition participations and 50 academic articles. She is the co-editor of an invited book about women in bio art to be published by Routledge and the editor of a special journal issue of the WoS Q1 philosophy journal Constructivist Foundations, published in April 2025. She has been the principal investigator for competitive research grants in excess of 1 million CNY and a co-investigator for interactive public art installations funded with 260.000 CNY.
Claudia Westermann has extensive experience in academic leadership. She has held various research-related administrative posts at departmental and university levels and several key administrative roles, including Programme Director of the RIBA Part 1 Bachelor in Architecture and Chair of the Departmental Learning and Teaching Committee in Architecture from 2015 to 2018.
Awards by learned societies
06.2024 Margaret Mead Prize of the American Society for Cybernetics, awarded on 15 June 2024 in Washington, DC.
Teaching awards
11.2017 National Award (China), Outstanding Design Brief for Final Year Project studio brief ‘Framing Indeterminacy’ co-authored with Aleksandra Raonic, 2017 National Architectural Education Annual Symposium in Shenzhen, China.
09.2014 SIP Excellent Educator. Award for the ARC308 Philosophy of Art and Aesthetics module from the local Chinese Government, Suzhou Industrial Park, September 2014.
06.2014 Most Innovative Teaching Practice. Winner of XJTLU’s annual university award for excellence in teaching in the category ”Innovative Teaching Practices”, June 2014 for the ARC308 Philosophy of Art module. Nominated by year 4 (level 3) Architecture students in both categories available to academics: Best Teacher, and Most Innovative Teaching Practice.
Awards for student projects, tutor awards and recognitions
08.2023 XJTLU Department of Architecture, Best Vision Award for the Final Year Project (Part 1) ’Reframing the Nearby’ by Liu Shucen. Supervised by Claudia Westermann. Tutor recognition.
08.2023 XJTLU Department of Architecture, Best Model Award for the Final Year Project (Part 1) ’Shuangta Community–Agency Through Play’ by Xie Haitian. Supervised by Claudia Westermann. Tutor recognition.
07.2023 XJTLU Best Final Year Project in Architecture, nominated for the RIBA Bronze Medal by the XJTLU Department of Architecture (Part 1), ’Reframing the Nearby’ by Liu Shucen. Supervised by Claudia Westermann. Tutor recognition.
07.2023 XJTLU Department of Architecture BDP-Farrell prize for Liu Shucen for the bestcombined performance in the semester 1 and semester 2 studios of year 4 in the BEng Architecture (Part 1). Supervised by Claudia Westermann. Tutor recognition.
04.2023 Best Design Award for Liu Shucen’s project ’Decoding the Nearby’ in the XJTLU Design School Student Competition 2023 ’Think Globally, Act Locally.’ Supervised by Claudia Westermann. The project is a response to the ARC305/304 brief, tutored in semester one of AY 2022-23. Liu Shucen’s work was further nominated in the Best Visual and Best Research categories. Award ceremony 16 April 2023.
07.2020 XJTLU Best Final Year Project (Part 1) in Architecture award for the FYP project The Re-Enchantment of Nature in the Post-Anthropocene by Zuo Annan. Supervised by Claudia Westermann. Tutor recognition. Shared first prize. Project nominated for the RIBA Bronze Medal and available from the RIBA President’s Medals website.
05.2018 Second prize in the Jiangsu Province Department of Education Final Year Project Awards for the Final Year Project of Li Shaokang, co-tutored by Claudia Westermann and Aleksandra Raonic in 2016-17, tutor award.
11.2017 National Award, Outstanding Design Studio Coursework for Li Shaokang’s FYP ’A Palimpsest of Old Shanghai’, tutor award, co-tutored with Aleksandra Raonic, 2017 National Architectural Education Annual Symposium in Shenzhen, China.
11.2017 National Award, Outstanding Design Studio Coursework for Shao Fuwei’s FYP project ’Shifting Perspectives in the Urban Theatre’, tutor award, co-tutored with Aleksandra Raonic, 2017 National Architectural Education Annual Symposium in Shenzhen, China.
07.2017 XJTLU Best Final Year Project (Part 1) in Architecture award for the FYP project A Palimpsest of Old Shanghai by Li Shaokang. Tutor recognition. Co-tutored with Aleksandra Raonic. Project nominated for the RIBA Bronze Medal and available from the RIBA President’s Medals website.
07.2016 XJTLU Best Final Year Project (Part 1) in Architecture award for the FYP project Museum of Navigation and Terminal by Bian Zhifan. Shared first prize. Tutor recognition. Co-tutored with Aleksandra Raonic. Project nominated for the RIBA Bronze Medal and available from the RIBA President’s Medals website.
02.2016 Third prize in the Jiangsu Province Department of Education Final Year Project Awards for the Final Year Project of Wang Siyao, supervised by Claudia Westermann in 2014- 15. Tutor award certificate.
07.2015 XJTLU Best Final Year Project (Part 1) in Architecture award for the FYP project At the Grand Canal by Wang Siyao. Supervised by Claudia Westermann. Tutor recognition. Project nominated for the RIBA Bronze Medal and available from the RIBA President’s Medals website.
07.2014 XJTLU Best Final Year Project (Part 1) in Architecture award for the FYP project Shifting Narratives by Huang Chien-hua. Supervised by Claudia Westermann. Tutor recognition. Project nominated for the RIBA Bronze Medal and available from the RIBA President’s Medals website.
02.2010 Award of Best Master Semester Design Project (tutor), out of 800 projects, Vienna University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture.
02.2010 Nominated for the award of Best Bachelor Semester Design Project (tutor), out of 160 projects, Vienna University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture.
For further information you may also visit Claudia Westermann's academic profile at XJTLU.