Matthew Soules is an architect, scholar, and activist who explores architecture as a material formation within complex socio-political dynamics. He designs spaces that operate formally, aesthetically, and materially as social generators and serve as alternatives to alienating tendencies within contemporary society. His architecture practice unfolds alongside and is informed by his research on capitalism and its unique relationship with architecture and cities.
Matthew Soules Architecture has completed built work at multiple scales, from interior house renovations to large urban public spaces. The practice has received numerous awards, including: Emerging Firm and Special Jury awards from the Architectural Institute of British Columbia, Architizer A+ Award in the cultural pavilions category, Pinnacle Award in Public Space from the International Downtown Association, Silver Medal from the Interior Design Institute of British Columbia, Faculty Design Award – Honourable Mention from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), and a selection by Twenty + Change. The practice’s work has been published in Azure, Canadian Architect, Domus, eVolo, Metropolis, The Globe and Mail and National Post, among many others.
Matthew’s research focuses on the rise of finance capitalism, financialization, and architecture operating as an investment asset and the many contradictions, tensions, and surprising opportunities that these phenomena entail. His book, Icebergs, Zombies, and the Ultra Thin: Architecture and Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century (Princeton Architectural Press, 2021), demonstrates how investment imperatives shape what and how we build on a global scale. His extensive work on finance capitalist architecture also includes analysis for the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), a contribution to the Italian Encyclopedia of Science, Literature and Arts, as well as the Japanese edition of Icebergs, Zombies, and the Ulta Thin (Soshisha Publishing, 2025).
Emerging from his research on the financialization of architecture, Matthew works to achieve better housing. In 2021, he co-founded Architects Against Housing Alienation (AAHA), an activist collective that operates on three fronts to realize de-commodified housing: Pedagogy, research, and exhibitions. The Canada Council for the Arts selected AAHA to represent Canada at the 2023 Venice Biennale of Architecture and AAHA has contributed to group exhibitions at Milan Design Week, Kamloops Art Gallery, and Belkin Art Gallery. AAHA is currently organizing a cross-Canada ‘superstudio’ while conducting SSHRC funded research. Matthew has twice been awarded the Housing Design Education Award, given jointly by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the ACSA.
Matthew is the editor of Future Social: Design Ideas, Essays, and Discussions on Social Housing for the ‘Hardest-to-House’ (Blueimprint, 2012) and author of Binning House (ORO, 2017). He has contributed chapters to books such as Industries of Architecture (Routledge, 2015) and Post-War Middle-Class Housing (Peter Lang, 2015). His essays and articles have appeared in Log, Perspecta, Harvard Design Magazine, Real Review, Praxis, Journal of Architectural Education, Canadian Architect, and Places, among many more. He has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Canada Council for the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council, Global Affairs Canada, and BC Housing.
In addition to teaching at UBC, Matthew has been Visiting Associate Professor at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and Visiting Faculty at SCI-Arc. Prior to starting Matthew Soules Architecture, he worked at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture in Rotterdam, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners in NYC, and Nick Milkovich Architects/Arthur Erickson in Vancouver.
Education
M.Arch, Harvard University
BA, University of British Columbia
Selected Publications
Matthew Soules, Icebergs, Zombies, and the Ultra Thin: Architecture and Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century (Princeton Architectural Press, 2021).
Matthew Soules, “Financial Formations,” in Industries of Architecture, eds. Katie Lloyd Thomas, Nick Beech and Tilo Amhoff (London: Routledge, 2016), 199-209.
Matthew Soules, “Deconstructing Livability. Perspectives from Central Vancouver,” in Post-War Middle-Class Housing: Models, Construction and Change, eds. Gaia Caramellino and Federico Zanfi (Bern: Peter Lang, 2015), 329-349.