MPhil/PhD Architectural Design Graduating students: Nadia Amoroso, Jan Kattein, Juliet Sprake. Current students: Adam Adamis, Yota Adilenidou, Dr Rachel Armstrong, Katherine E. Bash, David Buck, Nat Chard, Emma Cheatle, Ines Dantas Ribeiro Bernardes, Catja De Haas, Pablo Gil, Ruairi Glynn, Mohamad Hafeda, Sophie Handler, Teresa Hoskyns, Popi Iacovou, Christiana Ioannou, Rosalie Kim, Tae Young Kim, Constance Lau, Guan Lee, Tea Lim, Jane Madsen, Igor Marjanovic, Matteo Melioli, Malca Mizrahi, Christos Papastergiou, Henri Praeger, Kathy O’ Donnell, Felix Robbins, Eva Sopeoglou, Ro Spankie, Theo Spyropoulos, Ben Sweeting, William Tozer, Neil Wenman, Stefan White, Michael Wihart, Alex Zambelli.
Leading to a PhD in Architecture, the MPhil/ PhD Architectural Design allows especially able and reflective designers to undertake research within the Bartlett School of Architecture’s speculative and experimental ethos. The first to be established in the UK, the Bartlett MPhil/PhD Architectural Design is internationally recognized as one of the most influential doctoral programmes dedicated to architectural design. The programme draws on the strengths of design teaching and doctoral research at the Bartlett, encouraging the development of architectural research through the interaction of designing and writing. An architectural design doctoral thesis has two inter-related elements of equal importance—a project and a text—that share a research theme and a productive relationship. The project may be drawn, filmed, built, or use whatever media is appropriate. UCL’s multi-disciplinary environment offers a stimulating and varied research culture that connects research by architectural design to developments in other disciplines, such as medicine, art, anthropology and digital media. The programme is intended for graduates of architecture and other disciplines, such as art, who wish to pursue research by architectural design. Nearly 40 students from over 15 countries are currently enrolled on the programme.
The Bartlett School of Architecture’s two PhD programmes organize a number of annual events for doctoral students. PhD Research Projects, an exhibition and conference with presentations by current practice-based PhD students in UCL, is held in Term 2. Invited external critics in 2010 were Dr Lorens Holm, University of Dundee; Professor Rolf Hughes, Konstfack University College of the Arts, Craft and Design, Stockholm; and Dr Mark Morris, Cornell University. Throughout the year, PhD Research Conversations seminars are an opportunity for doctoral candidates to present work in progress. In addition, students are invited to participate in the Architecture & Interdisciplinary Seminars in the Bartlett and The Creative Thesis in the UCL Slade School of Fine Art, which is tailored to practice-led research. In December 2009 Ana Paola Araújo and Kristen Kreider were shortlisted for the ‘RIBA President’s Award for Research – Outstanding PhD Thesis’. Ana’s supervisors were Professor Jonathan Hill and Professor Jane Rendell, while Kristen’s were Professor Jane Rendell and Dr Sharon Morris.
Juliet Sprake Learning-through-Touring: A new design methodology for situated learning derived through touring the built environment PhD 2009 Principal supervisor: Professor Jane Rendell Second supervisor: Dr Barbara Penner This practice-led thesis asks how touring urban buildings and their environs can reinvigorate learning activities. Concepts and processes for learning through touring are developed through the thesis in the form of analytic investigations and design projects that aim to facilitate wider engagement for people to learn about the built environment. The development of a design methodology, learning-throughtouring, is the key original contribution to knowledge that the thesis makes.
The thesis provides a framework for making and investigating interconnections across areas of enquiry from different disciplines such as architecture, art, education, geography and urbanism. It is composed of two parts which operate in dialogue in relation to one another: Contexts and Projects. n one part, Learning and Touring Contexts, notions of site-specificity and subjectivity are argued to be relevant in rethinking the relationship between learning and touring. These discussions are then developed to produce the key concepts explored through the thesis: those that involve a shift from passive to active learning through visitor participation in the production of tours. The thesis proposes a new theoretical framework or context for considering how learning can take place through touring. The other part, Learning and Touring Projects, explores these ideas in practice, developing through a series of site-specific projects, new methods and processes for designing learning activities in tours. These projects are: Mudlarking in Deptford, Transitional Spaces at the V&A and Cracking Maps at the British Library. The thesis concludes by presenting a new design methodology – learning-throughtouring. This methodology has relevance for those concerned with developing participatory practice in urban design and architecture, with education centres committed to delivering learning activities in and about the built environment, with educators who develop creative ways of engaging with the topography of the urban landscape, and with those researching mobile learning.
Programme Director: Professor Jonathan Hill; Programme Co-ordinator: Dr Yeoryia Manolopoulou Supervisors: Professor Iain Borden, Dr Victor Buchli, Dr Marjan Colletti, Professor Sir Peter Cook, Dr Marcos Cruz, Professor Penny Florence, Professor Colin Fournier, Professor Stephen Gage, Professor Ranulph Glanville, Dr Penelope Haralambidou, Professor Christine Hawley, Professor Jonathan Hill, Dr Yeoryia Manolopoulou, Jayne Parker, Dr Barbara Penner, Dr Peg Rawes, Professor Jane Rendell, Professor Phil Steadman, Professor Neil Spiller, Professor Phil Tabor.