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
6
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
7
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
10
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.
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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.
25
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
28
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.
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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
32
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.