Lawrence Bird

• Ph.D. History & Theory of Architecture, McGill University
• M.Sc. City Design & Social Sciences, London School of Economics
• B.Arch., McGill University
• B.Sc. (Arch.), McGill University

• MAA, MRAIC, MCIP, MPPI, RPP, LEED GA
• Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art (Board of Directors)
• Winnipeg Film Group
• Video Pool
• Martha Street Studio
• Platform Gallery
• CARFAC

Lawrence Bird has worked in architecture, urban design, and media art. He is preoccupied with intersections of space, material, and image, and their entanglement with pressing existential and political concerns. Framed by his condition as a settler, his current research addresses images of architecture and the city in film and visual media, representations of land and cityscapes in popular mapping systems, digital and material artefacts, and spaces of reconciliation. 

Lawrence’s writing, for academic, trade and community publications, focused on the embedding of cultural histories in film, media, cities and architecture. He has co-edited two books on public art and architecture, and contributed chapters to several books on mediated spaces. He has been a peer reviewer for Leonardo and for a number of international programming committees.

Lawrence’s artistic practice engages media, the moving image, architectural and geographic space, and material images including printmaking. It has been largely funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, Manitoba Arts Council, and Winnipeg Arts Council. His work has been presented internationally, including at ISEA (2017, 2022, 2024), CTM Vorspiel (2023), xCoAx (2024), and Stadtwerkstatt / Ars Electronica, Lintz (2026). He often serves as a juror and curator. 

Lawrence is licensed as both an architect and city planner. He has practised professionally in London, Montréal, Philadelphia, and the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as in Winnipeg, most recently for Sputnik Architecture. He has been urban design consultant on two Transit-Oriented Developments and has served as a Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Advisor to Professional Practice (2023-24). As a practitioner he has a keen interest in sustainability, which he has written on for trade presses and taught in the Department of Environment and Geography.

Lawrence’s PhD in History & Theory of Architecture (McGill, 2009) addressed images of urban destruction in anime, manga and silent film, through three iterations of Metropolis. In addition to several departments at the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Architecture, he has taught at McGill University, Kanazawa International Design Institute (Japan), and Harvard Kennedy School. 
 

ORCID
"Harvesting Trauma: Space in Moving Image Media, Winnipeg" in Space in the Image, London: Intellect Books (2026). 

Number TEN Architectural Group monograph, with Alison Gillmor, Susan Algie. Winnipeg: Winnipeg Architecture Foundation (forthcoming). 

“Johanna Hurme” and “Wallbridge and Imrie Architects,” in The Bloomsbury Global Encyclopedia of Women in Architecture, ed. L. A. Brown, K. Burns. London: Bloomsbury (2026).

“Concrete Thinking”, in Canadian Architect (November, 2025).

“Prairie Passive”, in Canadian Architect (October, 2025).

“Winnipeg Places & Spaces”, in Canadian Architect (August, 2025).

“Renewing Île Verte”, in Canadian Architect (August, 2025).

“Monstrous Troublemakers”, in Canadian Architect (August, 2025).

“Poise and Flow”, in Canadian Architect (April, 2025).

“Crafting Architecture”, in Canadian Architect (September, 2024).

"Gathering Place”, in Azure (March/April, 2024).     

"A New Leaf”, in Canadian Architect (January, 2024).

"Burning Down the House: Architectures of Image in the films of Rhayne Vermette," in Exovede in the Darkroom, Winnipeg: ARP Books (2023).

"Veil House”, in Azure (December, 2022).     

Warming Huts: a decade + of art and architecture on ice, editor with Peter Hargraves, Sharon Wohl. Halifax: Dalhousie Architectural Press (2021).

Un-Earths: disorientation, landscape, and the technical map," in Paisajes artificiales: virtuales, informales y edificados, Iliana Hernández, Raúl Niño, Jaime Hernández, eds. (E-book), Bogotá : Editorial Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Colección estética contemporánea (2020).
 

Vimeo
Cargo / Net (2022–23). Research/creation; installed at Stadtwerkstatt / Ars Electronica, Lintz (2026); xCoAx Conference, Treviso (2024); and Trinity Square Video, Toronto (2023).

para||e| (ongoing). Media art and book project.
    In-situ documentation of US/Canada border along the 49th parallel; archival research, Library and Archives Canada; funded by a Marian Hebb Research Program Grant, Access Copyright Foundation.
    Single-channel video, satellite imagery harvested from Google Earth. Screened: CTM Vorspiel, Berlin (2023); ISEA, Manizales (2017); Anti-Atlas of Borders, Université Libre de Bruxelles (2016); Once is Nothing, Inter/Access Gallery, Toronto (2016); Furtherfield Gallery, London (2013); RAW Gallery, Winnipeg (2013); Culture Days Nuit Blanche, Winnipeg (2012). Permanently archived at: the Archive of Digital Art. Published in On Site Review 38 (2021) and The Site Magazine (2016).

Fields (ongoing). works in linocut, etching, lithography and collagraph.

‘drawing room (2024). Multimedia installation, Media Art + Technology Residency, Video Pool Media Art Centre, Winnipeg.

Dominion (2017–). Multi-channel projection-mapped video; research/creation project funded by Canada Council. Installed at International Symposium on Electronic Arts, Brisbane (2024); Bath Spa University, UK (2018); Winnipeg Design Festival / Nuit Blanche (2017, 2018); University of Manitoba Atmosphere Symposium (2017). Online at the Archive of Digital Art (2022).

Transect (2014). Video projection-mapping of Greenwich Prime Meridian onto Queen Anne Court, Royal Naval College, Greenwich, UK. 

M_obile. Single-channel video. Screened: ISEA, Barcelona (2022); Besides the Screen Conference, London (2018).
 

Chair, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art Board of Directors (2025-2026).

Leonardo, The MIT Press (2012-present): Peer reviewer.

International Symposium on Electronic Arts (2025, 2024): Peer reviewer, Programming Committee.

Royal Architectural Institute of Canada annual conferences (2026, 2025): Peer reviewer.

Film selection committee, Architecture and Design Film Festival, Winnipeg (2025, 2026).

Juror, Archishorts Film Competition, Architecture and Design Film Festival, Winnipeg (2015-2020, 2025-2026).

Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada (2025), Session Chair: Current Research – Community Engaged Practices.

Curator, film screenings at Winnipeg Design Festival (2024): Waste Lands, a program of six short films on spaces marked by unsustainable practices; Some Lots (Lorne Bailey, 2014), film for pop-up cinema, PARK(ing) Day 2024.

Juror, Kiyoshi Matsuzaki RAIC Endowment Fund and Scholarship (2024).

Volunteer, Mama Bear Clan, West Point Douglas Women’s Centre (2023—).
 

Manitoba Arts Council Create grant (2026).

Marian Hebb Research Program Grant, Access Copyright Foundation (2026).

AMPS/Intellect Mediated City Award for excellence in scholarship (2024).

Research and Creation Grants, Canada Council for the Arts (2017, 2018–2020, 2022–2023).

Arts Across Canada Public Outreach Grant, Canada Council for the Arts
    with S. Wohl, P. Hargraves (2019-2020).
Individual Artist Grant, Winnipeg Arts Council (2016).

Postdoctoral Fellowship (2009–2011) and Doctoral Fellowship (2007–2008), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Doctoral Scholarship (2004-2007), Fonds québécois de la recherche sur la société et la culture. 

Monbusho Scholarship, Japanese Ministry of Education (1997–1999).