Russ Gagg

Having graduated from Manchester University School of Architecture, Russ has held Chartered status with the Royal Institute of British Architects since 1998. Russ has worked in architectural practice across the UK, Asia and Australasia on a diverse range of projects from leisure, commercial and retail to educational, correctional and residential for large practices such as OPUS Architecture and DP Architects of Singapore. A large proportion of his work has concentrated on urban regeneration and renewal in Manchester and across the north west of England where he worked on many award-winning schemes for architects such as Ian Simpson, Roger Stephenson and AEDAS.

Russ joined AUB in 2006 from the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, where he was lecturer and studio leader on both the BA (Hons) Architecture and the MA Architecture programmes. Since joining AUB in 2006, Russ developed Interior Architecture and Design to become one of the leading and most progressive courses in the UK. Since then, as Dean, he has worked alongside academic and technical staff to develop the identity and strategic direction of the School of Design and Architecture and, most recently, the School of Art, Design and Architecture.

Russ is a permanent member of the BCP Design Review Panel as well as being an external examiner and quality assessor to a number of higher education institutions both in the UK and internationally.

Russ is the author of The Material Consciousness of Plastics, which is published by Palgrave Macmillan in Provocative Plastics, Their Value in Design and Material Culture, as well as being sole author of Interior Architecture: Textures and Materials, which is published by Bloomsbury.

His current research examines the socio-political implications of interior environments in representative legislatures by investigating the extent to which their design has resulted in racially discriminatory environments which exclude the global majority and under-represented groups from the very democratic processes intended to represent them.

Russ is an advocate for interdisciplinary approaches to learning and teaching in higher education, organising the AUB International Learning and Teaching Symposium 2025: “*...-disciplinary: multi- inter- trans- cross-?” which brought together innovators and practitioners in this area from across the UK.