Ian Robert Davis
Visiting Professor, Kyoto, Lund, Oxford Brookes Universities
Honorary Visiting Professor, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in Europe
Biography
Born in 1937 in Barrow-in Furness, Ian grew up in a family with a strong Christian and international background. His grandparents on both sides of his family were missionaries in India/ Fiji and Spain. Ian’s mother was a piano teacher and his father a mechanical engineer working on the design of submarine engines.
Ian became an architect following studies in London and Atlanta and worked in various architectural offices in London, Atlanta, Montreal and Detroit from 1958-1971 They included the offices of Erno Goldfinger and Minoru Yamasaki- (the designer of the Twin Towers in NYC). Ian’s final job before moving into architectural education was as Job Architect working for Chamberlin Powell and Bon, the architects of the Barbican Arts Centre in the City of London.
He then moved into academia to become a Principal Lecturer in Oxford Polytechnic (now Oxford Brookes University) from 1971-1989. He also taught Urban Planning, Shelter and Settlement and Landscape Painting from 2002-2013 in the Byron Fellowship Summer Schools held in Indiana and North Carolina.
During the 1980’s Ian was Chair of the ‘Association of Christian Planners and Architects and Planners (ACPA) Through conferences, debates, study visits and writing, this association sought to develop a radical Christian critique of current practice and theory for practitioners and students within the planning and architectural professions. ‘Christian Dimensions in Architecture and Planning’ (1985) Ian Davis, UCCF Associates
Since 1972 Ian’s primary academic work has been Disaster Risk and Recovery Management, as an academic, author, researcher, consultant, NGO Board member and advisor to Governments and UN Agencies. He wrote the first PhD on Disaster Shelter in University College London (UCL) from 1972-85. He wrote the first book on ‘Shelter after Disaster’ (1978), coordinated the first UN Guidelines on ‘Shelter After Disaster’ (1982) and edited the Second Edition (2016) for the IFRC. He co-authored ‘At Risk, Peoples Vulnerability to Disasters’ (1994) and Second Edition (2004) In 2015 he co-authored ‘Recovery from Disaster’. In 1996 he was the first UK citizen to receive the UN Sasakawa Award for his ‘International Contribution to Disaster Prevention’ In 2004-5 he was part of the working Group convened by the British Government’s Chief Scientific Officer to advise Prime Minister Tony Blair as he hosted the 2007 G7 Summit Meeting. From 2009-12 he was part of the international working group on the Independent Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) integrating Disaster Risk Reduction with Adaptation to Climate Change
Currently he is Visiting Professor in Kerala, Kyoto, Lund, Oxford Brookes Universities and Honorary Visiting Professor, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in Europe
He has been a Board Member of 4 NGO’s and in 1979 was a founder Trustee of Traidcraft, one of the UK’s first Fairtrade Organisations. He is the author, co-author or editor of 16 books and over 90 articles on disaster/ development related fields
In 2020 he published ‘Experiencing Oxford’ (Second Edition in 2024) which he illustrated with over a hundred of his watercolours.
His interests include post-disaster shelter, recovery planning, disaster risk reduction, adaptation to climate change, low-cost housing, development planning, architecture, sensory architecture, travel, classical music, painting in watercolour and vital links between the Christian Faith and the Built Environment as well as Disaster Risk and Recovery Management.
In 2003 Ian’s first wife Judy died. In 2008 he remarried to Gill and they live in Wheatley, a village near Oxford and in Aveton Gifford in South Devon. Gill and Ian each have three children and they share thirteen grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.