Architectural Design MPhil/PhD and Architectural & Urban History & Theory MPhil/PhD

Overview

Architectural Design MPhil/PhD

This stream within Architecture MPhil/PhD听encourages the development of architectural research through the combination of designing and writing. Students present a thesis consisting of a project and a text that share a research theme and a productive relationship. The project may be drawn, filmed, built, or make use of whatever media is appropriate.

View the UCL Prospectus page for this programme

Architectural & Urban听History & Theory MPhil/PhD

This stream within Architecture MPhil/PhD allows students to conduct an exhaustive, original and creative piece of research into an area of their own selection and definition. The range of research topics undertaken is broad, but most explore the history and theory of architecture and cities between 1800 and the present day.

View the UCL Prospectus page for this programme

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In their first year, students are registered as MPhil candidates, but are then expected to upgrade to PhD status. Full-time students are听expected to complete their PhDs in three to four years, whilst听part-time students complete theirs in five to seven years.

Architectural Design thesis submissions combine a design project and a text of around 60,000 words. The research for Architectural & Urban听History & Theory听is normally presented as a text of听100,000 words maximum with illustrative material.

All students have the option of auditing modules from听Architectural History MA,听led听by Professor听Peg Rawes.

Students are also encouraged to take advantage of听the variety of skills development courses run by the Graduate School UCL and the Language Centre. In particular, students are advised to follow the workshop听The Creative Thesis,听run in conjunction with the Slade School of Fine Art, which is tailored to practice-led research.

Supervisors

Architectural Design听MPhil/PhD and Architectural & Urban听History & Theory听MPhil/PhD both draw on the full range of the research expertise offered at The Bartlett School of Architecture.

As an MPhil/PhD candidate, you will听have two doctoral supervisors: one from the school听and a second from another school in The Bartlett听or elsewhere in UCL, depending on your research area.

Current supervisors

Dr Sabina Andron
Graffiti, street art and public art; legal geography and urban property regimes; the right to the city, spatial justice and urban commons; urban semiotics, geosemiotics, surface semiotics; urban visual culture and image theories; deviance, disorder and crime in cities; vandalism, protest and anti-social behaviour; transgressive and subversive practices of urban inhabitation.

Professor Peter Bishop
Application of urban design and urban planning theory; incremental urbanism; temporary uses and installations; role of conservation in distorting urban change; role of other stakeholders and political forces outside the design process in the construction of the built environment.听听听听
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Professor Iain Borden
History of modern architecture; urbanism and urban culture; skateboarding, graffiti and urban arts; public space; experiences of architecture; film, photography and other urban representations; critical theory and cultural studies.

Roberto Bottazzi
The aesthetic, spatial and philosophical impact of digital technologies on architecture and urbanism.
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Professor Ben Campkin
Histories, theories and practices of urbanism and urbanization. Transdisciplinary urbanism and experimental methods of urban research, publication and public engagement. Urban night spaces, cultures and governance. London鈥檚 history and built environment; contemporary urban policy and practice in London. Queer space, architecture and architectural histories; heritage associated with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer populations.

Professor Mario Carpo听
History of architectural theory and history of cultural technologies, with focus on the early modern period (the Vitruvian tradition and the Italian Renaissance, from Alberti to Vignola) and on contemporary digital design theory (1990 to the present).
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Professor Nat Chard
Architecture and indeterminacy; relationship between ideas and technique in architectural representation and manufacture; experimental practices in architecture; developing methods of drawing and making as a means of architectural research.听听听听
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Professor Marjan Colletti听
Digital design and digital theory; experimental building and urban design; innovative CAD/CAM fabrication technologies; neo-baroque and exuberant synthetic and syncretic design techniques.听听听听
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Professor Marcos Cruz
Innovative environments, utilization of bacteria and algae, computation, bio-technology and synthetic biology.

Dr Edward Denison
Histories and theories of modernism and modernity outside 鈥橳he West'. Africa, Eastern Europe, Asia, especially China and Chinese encounters with modernity domestically and/or globally. Colonialism, post-colonialism, and globalisation. Cultural heritage and critical approaches to urban heritage. Community engagement/campaigning and neighbourhood planning.听
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Professor Murray Fraser
Architectural design; design research; architectural history and theory; cultural studies; architecture and globalisation; cross-cultural influences; cultural identity; urbanism.
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Professor Stephen Gage
Time-based architecture; architecture that interacts with people and the external environment; architecture and performance.

Dr Sam Griffiths
Theories and methods for researching and writing the historical relationship between urban populations and their built environments; the spatial cultures of industrial cities, suburbs and high streets; urban manufacturing; architecture as chronotope in realist fiction and historical writing; space syntax as an interdisciplinary approach to research in the humanities and social sciences. 听

Peter Guillery
London's buildings and topography of the 16th to 21st centuries, especially housing, industrial buildings and vernacular architecture.

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Spatial cognition; mathematical and computational modelling of spatial and social relationships; individual and collective creativity; machine learning and intelligence; complexity and big data.
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Dr Penelope Haralambidou
Architectural drawing and making as research methods; art and architecture; Marcel Duchamp; architecture and allegory; theories of perception, memory, imagination and representation in design; visual technologies 鈥� historical and contemporary; experimental film and digital projection; exhibition design and curating; book architecture; stage design; and the design of public spaces.
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Professor Jonathan Hill
Programme Director
Histories and theories of architectural authorship and design; the formation of the architect; architecture by users and non-architects. Histories and theories of architecture and landscape with regard to their relations with the environment, climate and weather since the eighteenth century.

Dr Jan Kattein

Dr Chris Leung听
Prototyping through digital modelling, simulation, fabrication and instrumented testing as a modus operandi for design research;听timber construction and sustainable approaches to the design of timber buildings;听passive low-energy actuator technologies (phase-transitioning waxes, thermo-bimetals, shape memory alloys) for environmental control in buildings;听digital and hybrid digital-analogue control systems for facade systems;听solar energy;听passive cooling with optically selective radiators;听embodied mechanical logic;听advanced manufacturing processes e.g. design for multi-material polymer printing.
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Professor Yeoryia Manolopoulou
Architectural design and theory; design research methods; architecture and experience; collaborative, aleatoric and performative design; dialogic architecture; place, material practices and building; pedagogic settings; theories of embodied mind, action and environment; the architectural score; practices of drawing; architecture鈥檚 intersection with art, anthropology and neuroscience.

Anthropology of architecture, the built environment and urban processes; ethnography of architectural practice; urban and architectural visual and material culture; postcolonial urbanism; critical urban heritage; modern(ist) architecture and planning in London; French modern(ist) architecture and planning; Arab cities; Caribbean urbanism; universities and urban regeneration; education spaces and the city; 听participatory and community-led planning; anthropology of home and domestic space; ethnographic methodologies.

Professor Alan Penn
Urban research at the scale between the building and the city; design of complex buildings and their relations to organisations (i.e. hospitals, laboratories and offices); development of computing for architecture; urban pollution dispersal; virtual reality applications for the built environment; simulation of social phenomena and urban growth and change.
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Professor听Barbara Penner
Tourism; American hotels, resorts, and commercial architecture; gender and space; domesticity; consumerism; bathrooms and infrastructure; inclusive urbanism; appropriate technology.听听听听
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Professor Sophia Psarra
Architecture narrative and fiction, geometry of architecture and urban space; conceptual order, spatial morphology and spatial experience; the formation of spatial meaning in architecture and symbolic languages across different media; architectural theory; the morphology of cities in relation to processes of industrialisation, de-industrialisation and innovation; spatial design of complex buildings and its relation to society and organisations; computer modelling and visualisation.

Dr Caroline Rabourdin听听听听
Essay writing as critical and creative practice;听spatial theory;听phenomenology;听art practices;听spatial literature;听philosophy of language;听linguistics;听translation studies; comparative literature.
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Professor Peg Rawes
Theories of materiality and technology in architecture and spatial arts practices; embodiment, 听spatial subjectivities and aesthetics; histories and theories of geometry and spatiotemporality in early-modern European and Continental philosophy; social and political theories of ecology; wellbeing.听听听听
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Professor Jane Rendell
Gender/feminist theory and architecture; art, architecture and urban interventions; critical spatial theory and practice; creative/critical subjectivity and positionality in writing or site-writing; psychoanalysis and space; public space, cultural identity and narrative.听听听听

Harriet Richardson
Architectural history and heritage; medical buildings; development of hospital planning and design; post-war hospital architecture in Scotland; National Health Service; urban history; Scottish Architecture

Dr Tania Sengupta
Postcolonial and transcultural studies; colonial, post-colonial/contemporary architecture and urban history (non-western worlds, especially South Asia); postcolonial identities in western contexts. For non-western contexts: architectures of governance; provincial identity and rural-urban relationships; spatial cultures of domesticity; material and spatial cultures; global, local and scalar relationships in architecture/ urbanism; everyday spaces and practices.听听

Professor Bob Sheil
Architecture and design through production, experimental design, prototyping, making, fabrication, craft, innovative technology, digital practice, digital manufacturing, assembly, materials, modelling, transgression from drawing to making, 3D scanning.

Professor Mark Smout
Design-based approach to architecture, landscape (urban and rural) and climate change via political, technological and artistic disciplines.听听听

Dr Nina Vollenbr枚ker
Mobility; domesticity; the U.S. American West; manuscript diaries; nineteenth-century quilts; photography; histories and spaces of deaf culture; disability and architecture.

Dr Robin Wilson听
The architectural media (especially the architectural journals of the 20th century);听architectural photography; architectural criticism; arts-based and performative methods of spatial research; curatorship and architecture; utopian theory.

Dr Fiona Zisch
Cognitive architecture / neuroarchitecture; spatial cognition; cognitive ecologies; neurophilosophy; radical embodiment; embodied knowledge and intuition; cyberfeminism; technology, interaction, performance; movement, choreography.

Other supervisors

Other current doctoral supervisors include:

Allen听Abramson, (UCL Anthropology)
Matthew听Beaumont, (UCL English)
Nadia Luisa听Berthouze, (UCL Computer Science)
Victor听Buchli, (UCL Anthropology)
Marc-Olivier听Coppens, (UCL Chemical Engineering)
Colin听Fournier, (Emeritus Professor of Architecture & Urban Planning)
Lisa听Griffin, (The Bartlett Development Planning Unit)
Susanne听Kuechler, (UCL Anthropology)
Adrian听Lahoud, (Royal College of Art)
Jerome听Lewis, (UCL Anthropology)
Mark听Miodownik, (宅男视频 Mechanical Engineering)听
Sharon听Morris, (The Slade School of Fine Art)
Michal Murawski, (UCL SSEES)听
Ioannis听Papakonstantinou, (UCL Electronic and Electrical Engineering)
Brenda Parker, (UCL Biochemical Engineering)
Kathryn听Riley, (UCL Institute of Education)
Hugo听Spiers, (UCL Cognitive, Perceptual & Brain Sciences)
Philip听Steadman, (UCL Energy Institute)

Events and exhibitions

Architectural Design听MPhil/PhD and Architectural & Urban History & Theory MPhil/PhD jointly run a series of events which all students are expected to attend:

Research Conversations

Fortnightly work-in-progress seminars and reviews for new MPhil/PhD students. MPhil students also present more in-depth seminars to meet the criteria needed to听upgrade to PhD status.

Research Projects听

An annual PhD conference and exhibition with invited critics as respondents, organised by The Bartlett School of Architecture with the Slade School of Fine Art.

Find out more about PhD Research Projects 2020

Careers

Our MPhil/PhD students develop听creative and critical techniques that can be used in researching, designing and writing about any architectural issue, subject or site.

Upon completion of their PhDs, students have gone on to pursue careers in a wide variety of fields, from architectural and design practice to curatorial positions. Students听have also progressed into听academic roles听at both The Bartlett and other higher education establishments, such as:

The Architectural Association
Chelsea College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London
Goldsmiths College, University of London
Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture, Copenhagen
Royal Holloway College, University of London
University for the Creative Arts
University of Toronto
University of Westminster

Contact

Programme Directors:听Professor Jonathan Hill听and Professor Sophia Psarra
Programme Coordinators:听Nina Vollenbr枚ker听and听Dr Sophie Read
Programme Administrator:听Rahil Alipour听and Drew Pessoa

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