Will Davis is an architectural, urban, and environmental historian whose research focuses on the political economy of plants and multi-species life in the material worlds of architecture from the nineteenth century to the present. This work creates space for new, interdisciplinary collaborations and conversations between architecture, crafts, political ecology, heritage studies, and postcolonial thinking. His current SNSF Ambizione project is a research program that investigates how tactile, plant-based environmental knowledge grounded the architectural history of the plantation system. “Voyaging Vapors: Plant Histories of Plantation Architectures,” engages collaborators and research partners across Europe and Southeast Asia and is hosted by the Academy of Architecture, Mendrisio (USI). His first book, Palm Politics: Warfare, Folklore, and Architecture (forthcoming, University of Texas Press, 2026) examines the political ecology of the nypa fruticans palm species through a twentieth century history of architecture, resettlement, and agribusiness. The PhD dissertation on which the book is based won the 2022 Society of Architectural Historians David B. Brownlee Award for outstanding dissertation in architectural history.
Will Davis
