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RSID - Colin Ripley

Colin Ripley

Chair | Professor
EducationB.Eng., M.Sc., M.Arch., PhD.
Memberships/ServicesOAA, FRAIC

Colin Ripley is an internationally recognized and award-winning architect, researcher, educator and academic administrator. Along with his colleagues in the design-research firm RVTR, he has been the winner of a number of major awards, including the 2009 Professional Prix de Rome in Architecture. Dr. Ripley holds a Bachelor of Engineering from McMaster University, a Master of Science in theoretical physics from the University of Toronto, a Master of Architecture from Princeton University, and a PhD in Philosophy, Art and Critical Thought from the European Graduate School. He is author and editor of several books about architecture as well as journal papers on a wide range of topics, including megaregional urbanism, responsive envelope systems, sonic architecture, Canadian modern architecture, and the modern concept of the house as understood through the writings of Jean Genet.

www.rvtr.com (external link, opens in new window) 

 (external link, opens in new window) 

Where is sexuality, especially queer sexuality, in architecture? The House Is (Not) a Prison approaches this question from a radically new position, looking not for a theory of queer architecture, but rather for a queer theory of architecture. Starting from a reconsideration of the foundational principles of architecture, Colin Ripley demonstrates how the division of space steals land from the commons and forces separations and categories. In the process, queerness is created as an indispensable outside to architecture’s disciplinary interior.

Tracing the evolution of architecture from the late Enlightenment to the postwar twentieth century, Ripley shows how distinctions between the prison and the domestic home began to collapse in nineteenth-century initiatives to rehabilitate the criminalized, and blurred even further with the popularization of glass and concrete in the modernist cell. He examines sites such as Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon, Guillaume-Abel Blouet’s Mettray penal colony, Fontevrault prison, Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye, Philip Johnson’s Glass House, and the architecture of North American suburbs to better understand how structures both facilitate and regulate queer sexuality.

A parallel text in the endnotes connects Jean Genet’s prison-set writings to buttress the relationship between architectural features and queerness. With a foreword by Slavoj Žižek, The House Is (Not) a Prison is a provocative and surprising work that advances understandings of queer space.

Selected Publications and Exhibitions

  • Ripley, C. (2025, forthcoming). The house is (not) a prison: On the queerness of architecture. Concordia Universsity Press. 
  • Ripley, C. (2023). The Master’s Tools: Tearing down the goat-shed from inside. Journal of Interior Design Education. 
  • Ripley, C. (2023). The House of the Thief. Hallway Gallery, Toronto Metropolitan University. 
  • Ripley, C. (2022). Taking Architecture from Behind. In Jobst, M. and Stead, N, eds., Queering Architecture. Routledge.
  • Ripley, C. (2021, forthcoming). On Stained Sheets. Informa.
  • Ripley, C. (2020). (Im)proper Subversion: Taking architecture from behind. In Abrahamson, M., & Fischer, O. W. (2020). Dialectic VIII. Subverting - unmaking architecture. Novato: Oro Editions: 68-73. 
  • Ripley, C. (2020). The House of the Thief. Paul Cocker Gallery, Ryerson University. Virtual Exhibition. 
  • Polo, M. and Ripley, C. (2019). Architecture of the centennial. In Lam, E. and Livesey, G., eds., Northern Architecture: Canadian Architecture, 1967-2017. Princeton Architectural Press. 
  • Ripley, C. (2018). Strategies for living in houses. In Gorny, R. & van den Heuvel, D. (Eds.), Trans-Bodies / Queering Spaces [Special issue]. Footprint, 21.
  • Belanger, P., OPSYS and RVTR (2016). Extraction. Canadian Pavilion, 15th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia.  
  • Thün, G., Velikov, K., MacTavish, D. and Ripley, C. (RVTR) (2015). Infra-|Eco-|Logi-|Urbanism: The Great Lakes Megaregion. Zurich: Park Books. Exhibition at Centre de Design, UQAM, Montreal, 2013.
  • Polo, M. and Ripley, C. (2014). Architecture and National Identity: The Centennial Projects 50 Years On / Architecture et identité nationale : les projets du Centenaire, 50 ans plus tard. Halifax: Dalhousie Architectural Press. Exhibition at Confederation Centre of the Arts, Charlottetown, 2014; National Arts Centre, Ottawa 2015.
  • Ripley, C., Thün, G. & Velikov, K. (2012). Thick Air.  Journal of Architectural Education (JAE), Vol. 65, No. 2: 69-79.  
  • Ripley, C., Thün, G. & Velikov, K. (2009).  Matters of Concern: Problem Seeking and Complex Collaboration in a Post Information World. Journal of Architectural Education (JAE), Volume 62: Issue 4, May 2009. 
  • Ripley, C. with Polo, M. & Wrigglesworth, A., eds. (2007). In the place of sound: Architecure|music|acoustics. United Kingdom: Cambridge Scholars Press. 

Major Awards

  • Journal of Architectural Education Best Design as Scholarship Article Award. (2012-13). For Ripley, C., Thün, G. & Velikov, K. (2012). Thick Air.  Journal of Architectural Education (JAE), Vol. 65, No. 2: 69-79.
  • Professional Prix de Rome in Architecture (2009). Canada Council for the Arts. RVTR.
  • American Institute of Architects Honor Award (2008).Thomas L. Wells Public School (Baird Sampson Neuert Architects; Colin Ripley and Geoffrey Thün: Project Architects).
  • Governor-General’s Medal in Architecture (2006). Erindale Hall, University of Toronto at Mississauga (Baird Sampson Neuert Architects; Colin Ripley: Project Architect).