Rate My Professor Chris Mewburn

Mr. Chris Mewburn serves as a Senior Lecturer in the School of Design and the Built Environment within the Faculty of Humanities at Curtin University, Australia. He holds the position of Course Coordinator for the Bachelor of Architecture program. With over 11 years of experience teaching architecture, Mewburn specializes in digital technologies, encompassing immersive visualization, digital fabrication, and artificial intelligence tools. His teaching portfolio includes coordinating the online component of Residential Design alongside Associate Professor Francesco Mancini, tutoring in The Dark Hotel cluster, and contributing to units such as Urban Acupuncture, Digital Literacy—covering software like AutoCAD, Illustrator, SketchUp, Photoshop, and InDesign—Material Literacy with Rhino 3D, Grasshopper, and 3D fabrication, and Future Literacy focusing on speculative design, visualization techniques, and governance scenarios. Mewburn has led student projects inspired by his Sensory Manifesto, emphasizing tangible parameters in film, games, and architecture that evoke awe. He has facilitated international experiences, including New Colombo Plan internships in South Korea, and incorporated industry pitch competitions to transform student project approaches.

Mewburn's research centers on awe and self-transcendence in architectural experiences, investigating the integration of artificial intelligence tools with virtual reality for co-designed environments. He seeks to comprehend transcendent spatial experiences and demystify awe in architecture. Currently pursuing a PhD at Curtin University, his 2025 Milestone 1 report is titled 'Architectural Awe: Using GEN-AI and Virtual Reality to Reintegrate Principles of Architectural Praxis and Test Subjective Features of Accommodation in Extraordinary Architectural Experience.' Mewburn earned his Master of Architecture from Curtin University in 2014, with a thesis 'Astonishment in Architecture: Interrogating the Ineffable, Sublime and the Cosmos through Immersive Technology,' utilizing the university's HIVE laboratory for 360-degree panoramic projections and immersive films. Key outputs include co-curating the 2024 exhibition 'Stitch as Code' with Aleksa Bijelovic and Anne Farren at the School of Design and the Built Environment. For his contributions to teaching, Mewburn received a Commendation in the Faculty of Humanities category at the 2025 Excellence in Teaching Awards from the Curtin Student Guild, recognizing excellence in classroom communication, student engagement, and passion for the subject.