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Background and Teaching Description

Supasai Vongkulbhisal, Ph.D., is a scholar of architectural history and theory whose work examines the intersections of political power, cultural identity, and modern architecture in Southeast Asia. Her research investigates how architectural forms and practices have been shaped by colonial, postcolonial, and Cold War-era dynamics, with a particular focus on Thailand’s built environment. Through her scholarship, she explores how Western-educated architects mediated global modernist ideals with local contexts, producing hybrid forms that simultaneously asserted national autonomy and reinforced elite dominance. Her areas of expertise include modern and postmodern architecture, colonial and postcolonial theory, regionalism and the vernacular, and Southeast Asian urbanism.

A native of Thailand, Vongkulbhisal earned a Ph.D. in the Built Environment, specializing in History, Theory, and Representation, from the University of Washington, where she also completed a Graduate Certificate in Urban Design. Her doctoral dissertation, Than Samai in Modern Thai Architecture: Case Studies of Crypto-colonialism, examines the transplantation of Western modern architecture in Thailand during the 1960s-1980s as a subtle extension of U.S. Cold War influence in the region. She also holds an M.Arch II Post-Professional degree in Architectural Design from The University of Texas at Austin, where she was a Fulbright Scholar, and a professional B.Arch from Silpakorn University with summa cum laude honors.

Vongkulbhisal joined the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s College of Architecture as an Assistant Professor in 2024, after teaching at the University of Washington and Chulalongkorn University’s International Program in Design and Architecture (INDA). She has taught a wide range of courses, including architectural history and theory surveys, Southeast Asian architecture, and advanced design studios and seminars on climate-responsive and research-based design. Her publications include peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on Thai modernism, postcolonial theory, and architectural hybridity, as well as numerous professional writings. She has presented her work at international conferences such as the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH), College Art Association (CAA), European Association for Southeast Asian Studies (EuroSEAS), and The Association of Southeast Asian Studies (ASEAS). As an active member of SAH, she continues to advance her research on “modern vernacular” architecture and its role in shaping postcolonial identities in the tropics.

In addition to her academic career, Vongkulbhisal brings six years of professional experience in architectural design across Asia and the United States. She began her career as a licensed Junior Architects at A49 in Bangkok, where she led the design of high-profile residential projects and contributed to competition teams for nationally recognized works such as the New Thailand Parliament House and the Thailand Cultural Center. She further expanded her international perspective through professional internships at wHY Architects in New York City, Solid Objective–Idenburg Liu (SO-IL) in Brooklyn, and Buro Ole Scheeren in Beijing, where she contributed to the  MahaNakhon Project in Thailand. Most recently, she served as Project Lead at Magnolia Quality Development Corporation (MQDC), a leading real estate firm in Thailand, where she directed interdisciplinary teams in the adaptive redevelopment of shophouses and warehouses surrounding Cloud 11, a 250,000-sq.m. mixed-use complex in Bangkok. These diverse professional experiences have informed her integrative approach to design, bridging architectural practice with historical and theoretical inquiry.

Research Interests:

Modern and Postmodern Architecture; Colonial, Crypto-colonial, and Postcolonial Theories; Regionalism and the Vernacular; Architecture and Urbanism in Southeast Asia; Southeast Asian Studies; Thai Studies

List of Selected Publications:

• “Than Samai in Modern Thai Architecture: Case Studies of Crypto-Colonialism.” Doctoral Dissertation, University of Washington, 2022. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/48452 
• “‘Subordination’ in Modern Architecture, 1960s-1980s: Case Studies of Crypto-Colonialism.” In Proceedings of ConCave Ph.D. Symposium, Divergence in Architectural Research, 191-206. Atlanta, GA: Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Architecture, 2022. https://doi.org/10.35090/nrr9-5v39 
• “Ethical Relativism and Critical Regionalism: An Ethical Viewpoint on the Non-western Architectural Professions.” Nakhara: Journal of Environmental Design and Planning 13 (2017): 89-98. https://ph01.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/nakhara/article/view/104611 
• “Primitivism, Regionalism, and the Vernacular in Le Corbusier’s Middle Years, 1929-1945.” Master’s Thesis, University of Washington, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/36968 
• “Layering Modernity: Le Corbusier and His ‘Plan Obus’ Planning on Algiers.” Najua: Architectural History and Thai Architecture 12 (2015): 288-311. https://so04.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/NAJUA/article/view/44793 

Class Teaching in Fall 2024: 

• ARCH 592: Situating Modern Vernacular: Climate, Identity, and Architectural Adaptations
• ARCH 511: Advanced Architectural Design Studio II
• ARCH 240: Architecture History and Theory I
• ARCH 210: Architectural Design Studio: Representation