PhD Research Projects 2015 | Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL

PhD RESEARCH PROJECTS 2015

PhD RESEARCH PROJECTS 2015

TUESDAY 24 FEBRUARY 2015 Conference: 9.30am–6.30pm The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL 140 Hampstead Road / London

CONTENTS

05 06

10

Preface

24

Introduction

Alternative Possible Worlds:

Participatory Practices at the Crossover

SABINA ANDRON

of Architecture and Curatorship,

Show and Tell: The Role of Walking Tours

through Literature

in Configuring London’s Street Art Scene

26 12

MATTHEW BUTCHER

Reconfigurations of Urban Spaces via GPS

A Lyrical Architecture of Flood PHILIP DAWSON

Mobile Applications: Driving/Guiding 28

Transplanting Audio: The Intravenous 30

ADRIANA FESTEU

18

32

and Neuroscience

Beyond the Strada Novissima: 15 minutes Antonakakis 20

FELIPE LANUZA

Layered re-presentations of absence 22

CLAUDIO LEONI

Approaching Objects in the Crystal Palace: The Development of Gottfried Semper’s Design Theory between Idealism and Materialism

FIONA ZISCH

Bringing together Architecture

STYLIANOS GIAMARELOS

in 1980 Venice with Suzana & Dimitris

QUYNH VANTU

Engaging through the Threshold

Assessing Zwischenfach: Legitimate Vocal Category or Misnomer?

MERIJN ROYAARDS Altered States

Approach to Found Sound 16

REGNER RAMOS

Embodimtents, Subjectivities and

Architecture in Front of the Sea Wall:

14

MARIANA PESTANA

34 36

Biographies Credits

PREFACE

Dr Penelope Haralambidou

Co-ordinator, MPhil/PhD Programmes

Professor Jonathan Hill

Director, MPhil/PhD Architectural Design

Dr Barbara Penner

Director, MPhil/PhD Architectural History & Theory

P

hD Research Projects 2015 is the ninth

The conference papers are organised in pairs

related to doctoral research at the

this year’s exhibition considers the relations

annual conference and exhibition

Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. The event is open to the public and involves

presentations by students undertaking the

MPhil/PhD Architectural Design and MPhil/

of thematic or methodological links, while between doctoral research, architectural

design and expanded notions of drawing, making, installation and performance.

Organised and curated by Dr Penelope

PhD Architectural History & Theory. This

Haralambidou, PhD Research Projects

by MPhil/PhD students at the Royal

Royal Academy of Music; Professor Mario

year we have again invited contributions

Academy of Music, as part of our continuing collaboration with the school. Leading to a PhD in Architecture, the two Bartlett

School of Architecture doctoral programmes encourage originality and creativity. Over 90

students are currently enrolled and the range of research subjects undertaken is broad.

However, each annual PhD conference and exhibition focuses on a smaller selection

2015 has six invited critics: Dr Sarah Callis, Carpo, University College London; Professor Anthony Dunne, Royal College of Art;

Professor Mari Hvattum, The Oslo School of Architecture and Design; Professor Neil Heyde, Royal Academy of Music;

Dr Emmanuel Petit, Sir Banister Fletcher

Visiting Professor; and Professor Bob Sheil, University College London.

Presenting this year are: Sabina Andron;

of presentations from students who are

Matthew Butcher; Phil Dawson; Adriana

research. The purpose of the conference

Claudio Leoni; Mariana Pestana; Regner

starting, developing or concluding their

and exhibition is to encourage productive

discussions between presenters, exhibitors, staff, students, critics and the audience.

Festeu; Stylianos Giamarelos; Felipe Lanuza; Ramos; Merijn Royaards; Quynh Vantu and Fiona Zisch.

5

INTRODUCTION

At the Thresholds of Research

‘A

rchitecture is a verb’: As I

re-presentations of its absence through

line, I cannot help but think of

hybrid ecologies as in the case of the Flood

reread Quyhn Vantu’s opening

research as another verb that could be

similarly explored through her proposed ‘engagements through the threshold’ of architecture and art. After all, many of

her peers already work at the thresholds

of architecture and other fields as diverse as neuroscience (Fiona Zisch), literature

and curatorship (Mariana Pestana), or music and the visual arts (Merijn Royaards).

If indeed the threshold is the common

thread of this year’s PhD Research Projects, then the work of other participating

researchers could also be regarded as

generating additional types of thresholds, in turn broadly classified in two major

drawing (Felipe Lanuza), firm policies and

Defence in the Thames Estuary (Matthew

Butcher), or marketing strategies of touring companies and the symbolic value of

street art in London (Sabina Andron). The second group would in turn feature cases like that of Zwischenfach in relation to

the established practices and categories of voice classification in opera (Adriana

Festeu), or the development of Gottfried

Semper’s design theory between idealism

and materialism (Claudio Leoni), or even the sensitivity of a peculiar architectural gaze

as it traverses its modern and postmodern

drives in 1980 Venice (Stylianos Giamarelos).

Besides, the threshold as a shared topic

groups: (a) those emerging at points of

of architectural interest enjoys its own rich

and (b) those exploring the interstices of

emphatically discussed by Aldo van Eyck and

physical and conceptual intersections,

established modern compartmentalisations themselves. The first group would therefore include research at the intersections of different media (Philip Dawson),

our embodied relations with cities and contemporary mobile technologies

(Regner Ramos), architecture and the

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history. In recent years, it was perhaps more the Team X cohort. Frequently presented in terms of ‘the realm of the in-between’, ‘the greater reality of the doorstep’, and ‘the meeting place’, their architecture

would explore the threshold as a vehicle of

reconciling the harsh spatial polarities often

generated by international style modernism.

According to Francis Strauven (1998),

new light on a work we only pretend we can

Eyck’s own work are not to be found in the

as an ‘in-between’ catalyst of uncertainty, it

though, the origins of this theme in van

work of structuralist anthropologists, but

in Martin Buber’s popular humanist pleas

of the period. In the pages of his best-selling,

I and Thou (1934), the religious existentialist

philosopher was arguing for the ‘in-between’ space necessary for human contact and the development of meaningful relations. Yet

while Buber’s thought was always humancentric, his notion of the threshold can

now be read as a necessary ground for the

absolutely master and control. Functioning ends up challenging our assumptions, thus generating unexpected shifts in our work.

Isn’t this the most fruitful and recurring

experience of the research process, after

all? As researchers we are constantly in the lookout for similar thresholds that allow us to diverge from the frequently linear

trajectories of our work through encounters we could never predict.

Even these very lines are written at a

cultivation of intersubjectivities that could

threshold moment. Since this text has to

Regner Ramos’s and Matthew Butcher’s

shared the floor, it cannot aspire to inform

also accommodate the non-human Other. focus on hybridised embodiments and

architectural environments may render their

work as the most striking cases in point here.

In its attempt to generate peculiar

intersubjectivities between diverse doctoral research communities and their audiences,

the PhD Research Projects conference itself

functions as a radical threshold that does not guarantee a priori reconciliation. As an event

that can potentially generate both traumatic

reach the printers before we have actually you about a meeting that has not yet

occurred. It can still encourage you to

proceed to the threshold that is this year’s

PhD Research Projects, though. For it is

already clear that your contribution is equally crucial for the cultivation of our aspired intersubjectivities.

Stylianos Giamarelos

encounters and polemics, and agreement

and collaborations in equal measure, it sheds

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PRESENTERS

SABINA ANDRON THE BARTLETT, UCL

Show and Tell:The Role of Walking Tours in Configuring London’s Street Art Scene

N

ew York, 1973. Ed Koren’s drawing

four touring companies featured among

guide who points a group of

website. These tours do more than reference

for the New Yorker depicts a

people towards an art object, offering

them the following explanation: ‘Note the

densely distributed, yet perfectly balanced,

relationship between the expressive line and the organic whole – how unity of surface is

achieved by overtly lyrical variations of scale,

London’s top 20 activities on the TripAdvisor the London street art scene: they legitimise and localise it, whilst generating a specific economy that shapes not only tourists’

impressions of London street art, but also the cultural dynamics of the city itself.

This paper investigates the marketing

texture, and colour, giving three-dimensional

strategies, locations, and delivered content

definition.’ This might sound like a pompous

London, in order to understand their role in

form to a spontaneous, plastically graphic description of an abstract expressionist

painting, but the guide is actually pointing his interested listeners to a bus covered

in graffiti tags, performing the city-based

function of a tour guide as aptly as in any museum or gallery.

London, 2014. Forty years later, street art

tours grew to become an industry, revealing the continuous proliferation of this cultural phenomenon while playing a considerable

role in defining and promoting it. The London walking tour businesses are thriving, with

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of four major street art touring companies in constructing the symbolic value of street art.

Using Pierre Bourdieu’s and Howard Becker’s theories on art networks and the field of

cultural production, the paper proposes a

participatory ethnographic study of London street art tours, focusing as much on what

they include as on what they exclude. Based on notes, maps and interviews, the study hopes to show how these tours define

the conceptual, geographic and aesthetic territories of street art today.

11

MATTHEW BUTCHER THE BARTLETT, UCL

Architecture in Front of the Sea Wall: A Lyrical Architecture of Flood

C

urrent policy towards Flood Defense

1. How can architecture look to the

being diversified. Although the

Defense policy to inspire new typologies

around the Thames Estuary is

Environment Agency are looking to build larger and more efficient Flood Defense

walls and mechanical Barriers, they are also

exploring alternative models that work more symbiotically with the existing ecologies

of the Thames. Instead of holding back the

measures taken within British Flood

for Architecture in the Flood Risk areas of the Thames Estuary? What formal

and spatial logics might be appropriate for architecture if sited in this new hybridised landscape?

flood, these new models breach the seawall

2. How can we use, and interrogate, certain

mechanism to slow down heavy tidal flows,

that could be said to mirror the new policy

and use the landscape of the Salt Marsh as a thus generating a new hybrid infrastructure

that is part flood defense and part salt marsh.

Within this context, the purpose of my PhD is to ask:

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existing historical models of Architecture, towards Flood Defense in the Thames

Estuary, while presenting a more symbiotic relationship between architecture and the environment?

13

PHILIP DAWSON THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC

Transplanting Audio: The Intravenous Approach to Found Sound

E

xamining the process of sonic

assemblage in my music, this paper focuses on the ways in which the

appropriation of found sound interacts

in a narrative context. This methodology combines both the literal use and the

imagined interpretation (or rendering) of

found sound to form composite gestures out of diverse material. The latter is acquired

and achieved through several techniques,

ranging from the amalgamation of depositing environmental sound, and plunderphonics to Foley operations, convolution, synthesis, reanimation and turntablism.

14

Besides triggering the dynamics

of musical architecture, the application of

these characteristics also contributes to my

wider notion of a sonic dĂŠrive. Both concepts are manifest in my ongoing creation of a

mixed media website. The website houses

a collection of candid themes (embellished

truths), set as songs depicting my homeland, Essex. This experience is intended to serve as a virtual time capsule that contains

an interactive landscape built from the

narratives of reimagined events and topics.

15

ADRIANA FESTEU ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC

Assessing Zwischenfach: Legitimate Vocal Category or Misnomer?

V

oice classification in opera is a

with the notion of the singer as a highly

shaping singers’ repertoire and

he or she finds inspiring. This duality creates

common practice and has been

careers in an incontestable way. Singers use

labels such as ‘soprano’, ‘mezzo–soprano’, and

so on to define the possibilities and limitations of their voices and repertoire; all these labels emerged organically alongside repertoire.

As the art form evolved and gained popularity, further sub-categorisation arose to the advantage of the organisation of opera

houses as well as the vocal health of singers.

The human voice is often compared

to an instrument owing to the potentially ‘mechanical’ activity employed by singers in order to produce aesthetically pleasing sounds. Voice scientist Johan Sundberg

refers to the voice as such when explaining the complex physical process that enables

sound production; the comparison is further encouraged by the numerous existing vocal categories.

This compartmentalisation of voices and

the development of vocal science contrasts

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instinctive individual who performs anything a resistance factor for singers who do

not immediately ‘fit’ into the recognised

classification; thus, hybrid categories emerge to accommodate exceptions. Zwischenfach – a category in which my own voice has

sometimes been classified – represents one of these potential hybrids, yet the term has

different connotations in different countries.

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s concept that

the meaning of a word is established

through its collectively employed discourse provided my doctoral research with a clear methodological underpinning. This paper

discusses the usefulness of integrating the term Zwischenfach into the traditionally recognised vocal categories through

exploring the historical context in which the term emerged, its changing usage and by reflecting on the voice as an instrument.

STYLIANOS GIAMARELOS THE BARTLETT, UCL

Beyond the Strada Novissima: 15 minutes in 1980 Venice with Suzana & Dimitris Antonakakis

S

tarting off from the intention to

using three types of documents as my

offer ways out of the crises of

with them in June 2013, including their

organise an exhibition that would

the modern movements in architecture, the 1980 Venice Biennale went down in

history as the exhibition that crystallised

postmodernism predominantly as a style of historicist eclecticism. However, ideas travelling through cultures rarely follow

such a deterministically linear path. Since exhibition visitors are never critically

numb agents waiting to be spoon-fed by

the curators, the long history of their own formation (stemming from their specific cultural, educational, and professional background) unavoidably informs the

readings and interpretations they then go

on to share with their peers. That is precisely

why the subsequent contextualised reception of an event is usually even more historically significant than the event itself.

In this paper, I will closely follow the

footsteps of Greek architects Suzana and

Dimitris Antonakakis’ 1980 journey to Venice,

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main sources: (a) an interview I conducted retrospective account of their 1980 visit to

Venice, (b) contemporaneous video footage they themselves recorded on a 15-minute

Super-8 film roll in 1980 Venice, and (c) the 1981 event on post-modern architecture

in Athens, as both the event itself and the debate that ensued was later published

in the Journal of the Association of Greek

Architects. These documents show that the Biennale exhibition itself is a rather

small part of the Greek architects’ journey to Venice. The peculiar architectural

environment they find themselves in, and

their opportunity to visit specific buildings, are equally significant parts of this story of an architectural sensitivity that goes

beyond the Strada Novissima, as well as

an influence that is far more nuanced and

subtle than the one suggested by dominant historiographical platitudes.

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FELIPE LANUZA THE BARTLETT, UCL

Layered re-presentations of absence

A

rchitecture builds presence: a

memory and retrospective imagination.

a consequent presence of function

for different possibilities of interpretation

material presence that articulates

and meaning. In turn, that material presence

of architecture makes sense in a present time.

Absence, then, is not a common word for

describing or thinking about architecture.

Yet the notion of absence can explain the

condition of places that escape the present determination of architecture and the city as designed and planned environments.

Functionless voids and meaningless traces of former structures become fragments

abandoned by the current life of the city.

I investigate the condition of absence as

it appears in our experience of spaces and

structures detached from their regular urban functions, aiming to draw their qualities

into processes of architectural design and representation.

Going beyond mere emptiness, deficiency

or nostalgia, I argue that absence is a source of richness and potential by embodying the

fullness of multiple undetermined presences.

As a lack of present determination in our

experience of the city, absence triggers our

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It is a condition of place that opens room and occupancy.

Ignasi de Solá-Morales (1995)

acknowledges the key role of urban

photography in depicting these territories as it reflects their contemporary agency.

Since ‘photography’ as a term etymologically implies ‘drawing of light’ I use compositions of layered photographs to explore the

evocative qualities emanating from these

sites. By doing so, I intend to reflect on the processes of urban transformation that

produce absence in the city, and reveal an architecture that can be drawn from its re-presentations.

Based on this method I approach two

main case studies in South London: Burgess

Park, built over the last 60 years on a partially

effaced industrial setting that still bears traces of its former configuration; and the Heygate,

a decade-long vacant modernist council estate that was recently demolished to make way for a contentious regeneration project.

CLAUDIO LEONI THE BARTLETT, UCL

Approaching Objects in the Crystal Palace: The Development of Gottfried Semper’s Design Theory between Idealism and Materialism

F

orcing people to think about the

exchange. Semper’s comments on the Crystal

the Great Exhibition of 1851 has

representation of these conditions, a crisis

origins and progress of civilisation,

been regarded as a pivotal moment in

the history of anthropology. While natural

history collections had already explored the development of nature from the beginning of the century, the Great Exhibition was

the first one to assemble objects of human

production on a global scale. Under the same roof, ‘primitive’ and more ‘developed’ cultures were juxtaposed through their products.

Palace and its objects testify a crisis in the

instigated by capitalism and industrialisation

with consequential effects on the arts. Semper aimed to reconcile these differences in order

to produce significant goods and artworks for the future. Inspired by the empirical sciences, he developed his own method of object analysis, a ‘practical heuristics’ for the creation of novel forms of art.

In my presentation, I will retrace

History, art, and, hence, the development

Semper’s diverse approaches to the material

through material objects. This in turn

an idealist philosophy, Semper understood

of civilisation became physically accessible led to the emergence of novel ideas on anthropological collections, including

Gottfried Semper’s concept of an ideal

museum, or historico-cultural collection.

Capitalism and anthropology are the

main themes that underpin this research.

Semper was a critical commentator of

the Great Exhibition that acknowledged fundamental shifts in the economy, the

production of goods, and their international

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world in the Crystal Palace. Adhering to

culture and nature as driven by the same ideas, despite their apparent mutual

independence. He is therefore able to

incorporate the material evidence from the Crystal Palace exhibition into his design

principles. By doing so, he establishes an

aesthetic theory that is both materialist and idealist, marking a significant shift in midnineteenth century aesthetic thought.

23

MARIANA PESTANA THE BARTLETT, UCL

Alternative Possible Worlds: Participatory Practices at the Crossover of Architecture and Curatorship, through Literature

D

rawing from my experience in

and suggests authoritarian relationships

where methodologies, processes,

temporality that characterises work

developing participatory projects

and outcomes of both architectural design and curatorship intersect, my dissertation argues for the need to reflect upon the

disciplinary movement between the two and recognise the practice that develops

we very often forget to question. The

operating across the fields of architectural

design and curatorship allows for the creation of spaces that break through that ‘normality’ of architecture and propose alternatives.

The title borrows the concept of

across them as an alternative form of making

‘alternative possible worlds’ from the field

and develop a vocabulary and discourse to

and resolve my main research question:

space. My research aims to acknowledge

accompany such a cross-disciplinary practice, with a focus on the participatory situations

it promotes, moving beyond functional and factual definitions of use, in order to argue that use entails imaginative and fictional dimensions.

Architecture repeats itself through

of literature (Ryan, 1991), in order to formulate Whether work produced in the cross-

disciplinary space between architectural

design and curatorship can generate – even if for a brief moment in time – alternative, non-actual possible worlds, and what role

might users play in such a fictional setting.

This practice-led dissertation is based

systems, programmes and typologies we

on ‘The Real and Other Fictions’ exhibition

‘normal’ (Jacob, 2012). Yet, this apparently

of Close, Closer, 2013 Lisbon Architecture

have become accustomed to consider

‘normal’ architecture materialises power structures, choreographs behaviours,

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that formed part of the official programme Triennale.

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REGNER RAMOS THE BARTLETT, UCL

Embodiments, Subjectivities and Reconfigurations of Urban Spaces via GPS Mobile Applications: Driving/Guiding

M

y research explores the relationship

the quickest route to their destination in

mobile technologies by studying

physical act of driving alongside the act of

between bodies, urban space and

the affectional and spatial properties of

three GPS-based mobile applications — Grindr, Mappiness and Waze. Guided by

cyberfeminist theories, I approach these apps as a series of material objects, particularly when addressing the physical and spatial

properties of the screen/interface; through

interface and performance the apps create a

real time — as my case study, I explore the digital guiding, capitalising on the hybridity

between person, space and machine. I base

my discussions on the interviews I conducted with 15 Waze users, which highlighted the

relationship between bodies and technology

and how these create new ways of performing identity in space.

Through Waze’s interface, spatiotemporal

sense of othering and difference, as theorised

relations acquire new manifestations as

Katherine Hayles. Thus, my dissertation

one physical and one digital — which seem to

by Donna Haraway, Rosie Braidotti and

seeks to address and understand the ways in which GPS apps create new spatiotemporal relations for bodies, as well as how these

relations are made visible/mobilised by the

interfaces’ spatial and urban representations.

The dissertation upholds that GPS-based

apps enable the construction of new digital subjects/embodiments. By using Waze —

a satellite navigation app which uses crowdsourced information to help drivers find

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Wazers experience a dual embodiment —

occupy disparate positions in different times.

Through this splitting of embodiments, I discuss the Posthuman, as well as the

alternate forms of community and digital

citizenship that are produced through and by

the app. I see these embodiments as situated; they are localised and they are place-based; they have an intrinsic relation to time, and they attest to new representations and inhabitations of spaces and territories.

27

MERIJN ROYAARDS THE BARTLETT, UCL

Altered States

A

t the beginning of the 20th century in Russia, a section of the creative avant-garde aimed to cause a

of this chapter by reconstructing, developing and updating its devices and concepts.

The research converges the fields of sonic

sensory revolution. This collective of artists

art, electronic dance music, architecture and

transform the individual and shape the

practice of inter-sensory experience.

and thinkers shared a determination to

collective future by charting the hidden

conflict studies into an evolving theory and The relations between these fields

pathways between the senses. It was a

and their relation to the Russian avant-

Stalin, whose Great Terror all but wiped out

energy distribution and sensory fluidity.

revolution ruthlessly cut short by Joseph

the experiments, theories and techniques of the ‘new revolutionaries’.

Their achievements form what could be

described as a missing, and critical, chapter in the history of music, art and spatial practice.

Altered States investigates the implications

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garde appear as particular techniques of Altered States is an attempt to describe these techniques, and to construct from

them a principle that can offer alternative

approaches to the experience and production of sound, art and architecture.

29

QUYNH VANTU THE BARTLETT, UCL

Engaging through the Threshold

A

rchitecture is a verb. Active and in

and out of spaces and offering opportunities

spatial experience. My research

the threshold is physical manifestation of

flux, movement is a generator of

seeks to challenge the traditional static,

object-oriented, and permanence-minded practice of architecture, in favour of an

for engagement with the built environment, movement signifying transition from one space to another.

My practice lies between architecture and

architecture that evokes our reinvestigation

art; installations and interventions are my

experience. Michel de Certeau’s ‘enunciative’

the promotion of social interaction. Feeding

of space through movement and spatial

functions of walking – the appropriation of

the topographical system by the pedestrian (co-production), the spatial acting out of the place (space), and the relationship

between the pedestrian and the environment through movement (engagement) – render movement as the catalyst of a bodily

engagement with the built environment

means for spatial experimentation, aiming at research into praxis, I speculate on ways of

adapting spatial interventions as architectural installations that challenge our perceptions of movement, time and space. These built works

embody questions of spatial practice, focusing on our perceptions through sensorial effects evoked and enhanced through movement.

Gaining from my analysis of these

through space and time. I therefore seek

conditions of movement, transition and

activate a more engaged spatial condition

installations and drawings of architectural

to implement movement in design, so as to of experience.

Utilising the threshold as a

methodological tool, I am exploring how

this architectural element is the most active space within architecture. Ushering us in

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passage, I enlist the use of temporal

provocation with one question in mind: How can the careful consideration of movement as an element for design enhance our

engagement both with the built world, and with each other?

FIONA ZISCH THE BARTLETT, UCL

Bringing together Architecture and Neuroscience

T

his research project explores

in dialogue, establish a shared foundation

spatial perception and conception; it

approach. Following a transdisciplinary

introversion and extraversion and

focuses on how the mind and brain construct internal (experiential) worlds in relation to the external (architectural) world.

Phenomenological philosophy and

architectural theory (and design) historically

have tended to concentrate on introspection to circumscribe the mechanisms through

which the mind constructs worlds.Over the

last century, the brain sciences have started addressing the relationship between the

construction of realities and the anatomy and physiology of the brain. Fields such

as philosophy, psychology, linguistics, and neuroscience merged and formed new

disciplines; these meetings of disciplines

gave rise to the exploration of a range of new questions, the emergence of new dialogues,

and the development of new methodologies.

Asking questions concerning the

internal construction and experience

of external space and their reciprocal

relationship, a key objective of this research

in architectural design is to collaborate with relevant disciplines, in order to engage

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of knowledge, and refine a methodological and exploratory trajectory as a researcher, I work both in architecture and cognitive

neuroscience. Therefore, the dialogue which both surrounds and takes place within me

is based on the neurophilosophical model.

Bringing together humanistic reflection with naturalistic empiricism, the research embeds

the resulting knowledge and insights into the realm of architectural design, thus starting to define and develop a novel workspace shared with cognitive neuroscience. The research operates on three intertwined strands,

correlating theoretical inquiry with empirical

quantitative and qualitative experiments and speculative design proposals.

This presentation will outline current

empirical research and design explorations, highlighting a series of collaborative

experiments investigating the neural basis

of human navigation in urban environments, the cognitive inferences during navigation in street networks, and implications of

this understanding in neuroscience and

psychology for architectural and urban design.

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BIOGRAPHIES

Sabina Andron is a PhD candidate at The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, with a project on street art, graffiti, and their relation to the built environment.

She has a background in literature and visual culture, and is a keen photographer of urban inscriptions and surfaces.

Sabina is also an arts advisor and facilitator.

She runs the London based arts education group I Know What I Like, where she organises critical gallery visits and art walks, and curates exhibitions with work by artist members.

Matthew Butcher is lecturer in Architecture and Performance and BSc Programme Leader at the Bartlett School of Architecture. Recent projects and exhibitions include ‘Stage City’ (exhibited at the V&A Museum and the Prague Quadrennial), ‘Wash House Carnival Arena’ (exhibited in Guimarães, Portugal, as part of the city’s 2012 European Capital of Culture, Art and Architecture Program), ‘2EmmaToc/Writtle Calling’ a temporary radio station in Essex, which was voted in Art Forum as one of the best events and projects of 2013.

Philip Dawson is a composer/performer who divides his artistic output into two categories; his concert music commissions he describes as ‘one-off’ designs for the stage, and, in parallel, his ongoing collaboration called RuNTiMe, which is a transmedia experiment in storytelling for the digital age. The Arts & Humanities Research Council supports his doctoral research at the Royal Academy of Music.

Adriana Festeu is an opera singer, lecturer and researcher, currently completing her Doctoral studies at the Royal Academy of Music. She performed the title roles in Bizet’s Carmen, Rossini’s Cenerentola and also Rosina The Barber of Seville, Suzuki Madame Butterfly,

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Isolier Count Ory, and Composer Ariadne auf Naxos. With Opera Prelude, she delivers performance-based opera history lectures at the Cadogan Hall. Adriana is the recent winner of a bursary from the International Opera Awards.

Stylianos Giamarelos studied Architecture, Philosophy, and History of Science in Athens.

He has respectively co-edited and co-authored the books ATHENS by SOUND (Athens: futura 2008), and Uncharted Currents (Athens: Melani 2014). He is a Teaching Fellow in Architectural History & Theory at the University of East London, The Bartlett School of Architecture and the History of Art Department, UCL. His PhD research is conducted under a three-year scholarship from the Greek State Scholarships Foundation (‘Lifelong Learning’ Programme European Social Fund, NSRF 2007-13).

Felipe Lanuza is a trained architect from the University of Chile and holds a MArch from the Catholic University of Chile. In his home country he practiced and worked as teacher and researcher in architectural and urban design and history. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Architectural Design at The Bartlett, UCL, funded by the Chilean government. Felipe is an Associate at Urban Transcripts and has presented his research in conferences and exhibitions in South America and the UK. After his first degree (BSc) in Urban Planning and Design, Claudio Leoni studied Art History, Musicology, and Philosophy (BA) at the University of Zürich and subsequently graduated from UCL with an MA in Architectural History.

He is currently involved in a research project concerning the German architect and theorist Gottfried Semper at the Academy of Architecture Mendrisio and ETH Zurich, while pursuing his PhD at UCL.

Mariana Pestana holds a BA (Hons) in Architecture from Porto School of Architecture and an MA in Narrative Environments from Central Saint Martins (funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation). Mariana is a co-founder of The Decorators, a collective that designs and programs for public spaces, and lectures at the Chelsea College of Arts. She is currently pursuing a PhD at The Bartlett School of Architecture, while working as a research curator at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Regner Ramos obtained his Bachelors and Masters degrees at the University of Puerto Rico’s School of Architecture. He is currently a final year PhD Candidate at The Bartlett School of Architecture UCL, and his research focuses on the relation between embodiments, urban space and GPS mobile apps. Regner is an Associate Lecturer at UAL - Central Saint Martins and London College of Communication, the Editorin-Chief of LOBBY magazine and a writer for Glass Magazine.

practice for spatial experimentation. She has exhibited across Europe and the USA and has been the recipient of numerous awards including a DAAD Stipendium to study with Olafur Eliasson at the Institut für Raumexperimente in Berlin, a US-UK Fulbright Scholarship to complete a MA in Contemporary Arts Practice at Coventry School of Art and Design and a UCL Overseas Research Scholarship for her PhD research.

Fiona Zisch graduated with an MArch from the University of Innsbruck and studied film architecture at the National Film School. She is co-founder of the Holon Architecture Laboratory (HAL) at the University of Innsbruck, where she teaches architectural design with Dr Clemens Plank. She also teaches first year design at the University of Westminster and works as a freelance architect. Her transdisciplinary research in architecture and neuroscience explores spatial perception and conception.

Merijn Royaards is a multi-disciplinary practitioner who operates in, and between, the fields of music, visual arts and architecture. His current research looks at the first convergences of these fields in history, and investigates the implications of such convergences to current architectural discourse.

While most of his publications and speaking engagements have been on sonic experience, his live-performances and exhibitions combine electronic dance music, sound installation, and free improvisation.

Quynh Vantu is a licensed architect and artist from the USA, having gained her BArch from Virginia Tech and her MArch from the Cranbrook Academy of Art. Her practice is situated between art and architecture utilising a studio-based

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CREDITS

MPhil/PhD supervisors: Dr Jan Birksted, Professor Peter Bishop, Dr Camillo Boano, Dr John Bold, Professor Iain Borden, Dr Victor Buchli, Professor Mario Carpo, Dr Ben Campkin, Professor Nat Chard, Dr Marjan Colletti, Professor Sir Peter Cook, Dr Marcos Cruz, Michael Edwards, Professor Adrian Forty, Professor Colin Fournier, Professor Murray Fraser, Professor Stephen Gage, Dr Francois Guesnet, Dr Sean Hanna, Dr Penelope Haralambidou, Professor Christine Hawley, Professor Jonathan Hill, Dr Adrian Lahoud, Dr Ruth Mandel, Dr Carmen Mangion, Dr Yeoryia Manolopoulou, Professor Timothy Mathews, Dr Caroline Newton, Professor Sebastian Ourselin, Jayne Parker, Dr Barbara Penner, Dr Sophia Psarra, Dr Peg Rawes, Professor Jane Rendell, Professor Bob Sheil, Dr Stephanie Schwartz, Mark Smout, Professor Philip Steadman, Dr Hugo Spiers, Professor Neil Spiller, Professor Michael Stewart, Professor Philip Tabor, Dr Claire Thomson.

MPhil/PhD Architectural Design students: Yota Adilenidou, Bihter Almac, Luisa Silva Alpalhão, Nicola Antaki, Nerea Elorduy Amoros, Anna Andersen, Jaime Bartolome Yllera, Katy Beinart, Joanne Bristol, Matthew Butcher, Niccolo Casas, Ines Dantas Ribeiro Bernardes, Bernadette Devilat, Killian Doherty, Pavlos Fereos, Judit Ferencz, Susan Fitzerald, Pablo Gil, Ruairi Glynn, Polly Gould, Sander Holsgens, Colin Herperger, Bill Hodgson, Popi Iacovou, Christiana Ioannou,

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Nahed Jawad, Tae Young Kim, Dionysia Kypraiou, Hina Lad, Felipe Lanuza, Tea Lim, Jane Madsen, Samar Maqusi, Matthew Mc Donald, Matteo Melioli, Oliver Palmer, Christos Papastergiou, Luke Pearson, MarianaPestana, Henri Praeger, Felix Robbins, David Roberts, Natalia Romik, Merijn Royaards, Matt Shaw, Wiltrud Simbuerger, Eva Sopeoglou, Camila Sotomayor, Ro Spankie, Theo Spyropoulos, Theodoros Themistokleous, Quynh Vantu, Cindy Walters, Henri Williams, Alex Zambelli, Seda Zirek, Fiona Zisch.

MPhil/PhD Architectural History & Theory students: Wesley Aelbrecht, Tilo Amhoff, Sabina Andron, Gregorio Astengo, Pinar Aykac, Tal Bar, Ruth Bernatek, Rakan Budeiri, Mollie Claypool, Sevcan Ercan, Marcela Araguez Escobar, Stylianos Giamarelos, Nadia Gobova, Kate Jordan, Alex Kidd, Irene Kelly, Jeong Hye Kim, Claudio Leoni, Abigail Lockey, Kieran Mahon, Carlo Menon, Megan O’Shea, Dragan Pavlovic, Matthew Poulter, Regner Ramos, Sophie Read, Sarah Riviere, Ryan Ross, Ozayr Saloojee, Huda Tayob, Amy Thomas, Freya Wigzell.

Submitted and/or completed doctorates 2014–2015: Kalliopi Amygdalou, Alessandro Ayuso, Eva Branscome, David Buck, Eray Cayli, Mohamad Hafeda, Igor Marjanovic, Stefan White, Michael Wihart, Danielle Willkens

This catalogue has been produced in an edition of 300 to accompany PhD Research Projects 2015, the ninth annual conference and exhibition devoted to doctoral research at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, Tuesday 24 February 2015.

Edited by Penelope Haralambidou and Stylianos Giamarelos.

Designed by Avni Patel | www.avnipatel.com Printed in England by Aldgate Press Limited.

Published by the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. 140 Hampstead Road, London NW1 2BX. Copyright Š 2015 the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher. www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk PhD Research Projects 2015 is supported by the Bartlett School of Architecture and the Doctoral School Skills Development Programme, UCL. Special thanks to architect/choreographer Kyveli Anastasiadi and choreographer Anastasia Papaeleftheriadou.

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PhD Research Projects 2014. Photography by Richard Stonehouse.

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On the cover: Matthew Butcher, The Chapel at Cliffe, 2014.