Dr David Turner

David has taught and practised architecture in the UK and New Zealand. Originally from Dunedin, he graduated from Manchester University and taught in the School of Architecture before practicing with the Building Design Partnership for two years. He was accepted onto the post-graduate Urban Design Programme at Manchester in 1976, completing a thesis on dockland regeneration based on Bristol’s 18th-century floating harbour. With a small team, David won a competition for a town centre redevelopment project in southern England, and set up a practice in Bath. The practice developed a reputation in urban planning and architecture, and won a second competition in 1983 for a mixed commercial + ‘hi-tech’ industries business scheme in the regeneration of the London Docklands. Urban workplace architecture became one focus of the practice alongside housing and conservation projects, many in historic British cities. The practice, re-named Tektus in 1985, was taken over by one of Britain’s largest consultancies in 2005. David returned to New Zealand in 1994 to join Unitec's new School of Architecture. He has developed courses for environmentally sustainable construction, an innovative approach to design economics, and has taught urban planning and design in the undergraduate programme. In the postgraduate programme, he has supervised over 40 completed final-year research projects. David also runs two specialised urban housing design electives – one in the Bachelors Programme and one in the Masters Programme – that address and critique the intersection of architecture and the socio-economic policies that impact on higher density housing typologies.