Overview

At the Bartlett School of Architecture, our research is characterized by an experimental and speculative attitude across design, technology, urbanism, criticism/history/theory through the adoption of a diverse range of processes and products. Our unique approach to research is defined by a desire to:

• combine creativity, imagination and innovation with critical reflection and theoretical rigour.
• push the boundaries of what architecture is and might be, from multi- and inter-disciplinary perspectives.
• promote a diverse range of architectural research processes and outputs including artefacts, books, buildings, designs, curated exhibitions, edited collections, essays, installations, prototypes, refereed articles.
• sustain an on-going dynamic between cutting edge research and innovative/advanced/exploratory teaching.
• develop our close relationship with the architectural profession through the continued recruitment of architects as teaching fellows and the employment of alumni in architectural offices with international reputations for excellent design.

We believe these aspirations define a vital and integrated culture capable of maintaining innovatory research in the long term. Since 2001 members of the Bartlett School of Architecture have won 5 awards for books/articles,produced 17 authored books, 18 edited books, 13 special issues of journals, 135 book chapters, 79 journal articles, 140 cataogue essays/magazine/newspaper articles and presented 164 papers at conferences and 373 invited talks. They have won 27 first prizes for designs, 7 competition wins for building proposals, and 16 honorable mentions/commendations/runners-up; and designed 10 and curated 19 exhibitions, exhibited designs in 11 solo and 96 group shows, created 30 artworks and 19 buildings.

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Recent Highlights

Marcos Cruz, winner of RIBA President's Award for Research, 2008, Outstanding PhD Thesis.

Josephine Kane, shortlisted for for RIBA President's Award for Research, 2008, Outstanding PhD Thesis.

Penelope Haralambidou, shortlisted for for RIBA President's Award for Research, 2008, Outstanding University-Located research for The Blossoming of Perspective (2007).

Peg Rawes, Space, Geometry and Aesthetics: Through Kant and Towards Deleuze (Palgrave Macmillan: 2008)

Neil Spiller, Digital Architecture Now - A Global Survey of Emerging Talent (Thames and Hudson, 2008)

Ranulph Glanville, awarded Outstanding Paper Award of the Emerald Literati Network, 2008, for the paper "Try again. Fail again. Fail better: the cybernetics in design and the design in cybernetics," in Kybernetes (vol 36, no 9 and 10, 2007).

Ben Campkin and Rosie Cox (eds.) Dirt: New Geographies of Cleanliness and Contamination (London: IB Tauris, 2007)

Peg Rawes, Irigaray for Architects, (London: Routledge, 2007).

Ben Campkin and Paul Dobraszczyk (eds.) 'Architecture and Dirt', special issue, The Journal of Architecture 12 (4), September, 2007.

Jane Rendell, Jonathan Hill, Murray Fraser and Mark Dorrian, (eds) Critical Architecture (London: Routledge, 2007).

Penelope Haralambidou, The Blossoming of Perspective, an exhibition of drawings, DomoBaal, 3 John Street, London (2007), accompanied by a catalogue (London: DomoBaal Editions, 2006).

Smout Allen, Pamphlet Architecture 28: Augmented Landscapes a collection of designs to be published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2007.

Sixteen* Makers, Assembling Adaptation an exhibition of recent work from the Kielder Residency, The Building Centre, Store Street, London (2006).

Jonathan Hill, Immaterial Architecture (London: Routledge, 2006)

Neil Spiller, Visionary Architecture: Blueprints of the Modern Imagination (London: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2006).

Jane Rendell, Art and Architecture: A Place Between (London: IB Tauris, 2006).

cj Lim's new authored book Virtually Venice (London: The British Council, 2006).

Niall McLaughlin Architect’s ARC, Hull, winner of a limited competitive interview and an RIBA Award (2006), recipient of an Excellence in Design Commendation from the American Institute of Architects (2006), exhibited at GBE, Carnegie Mellon Museum, Pittsburgh, (2006-7) and published in: The Independent, Blueprint, RIBA Journal.

marcos and marjan Interfaces / Intrafaces (authors Marcos Cruz and Marjan Colletti) a collection of designs and texts for the Con2equence Book Series on Fresh Architecture (Wien and NewYork: ICP/Springer, 2005).

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Research Drivers

Research at the Bartlett School of Architecture aims to:

• develop experimental design as a key aspect of research culture of the school through:
• the design ofinnovative buildings through spatial, technical and contextual innovation;
• the production of conceptual architecture critiquing existing design processes and inventing new forms of drawing and model-making;
• design-led technological and interactive installations combining digital and analogue processes.
  
• take part in the interdisciplinary development of historical, theoretical and critical scholarship in architecture giving special attention to:
• innovation in architectural and urban history by placing emphasis on the ‘everyday’ and user experience;
• rethinking the history of modernism from a cross-cultural perspective;
• design criticisminformed by historical scholarship and theoretical ideas from fine art, philosophy and aesthetics.
  
• integrate design- and text-based research through pioneering editorial and curatorial projects, advancing the interaction of the reflective and creative aspects of architectural research and bringing these into the public realm.  

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Experimental Design

Our architectural design research is characterised by a high level of originality, invention and creativity, and has made significant advancements in the field internationally.

Research in the area of Architectural Design falls into three themes: Innovative Buildings

Bartlett staff members work on the design of buildings that innovate through their approach to context, programme, form and technology. We have won numerous first prizes in national and international architectural competitions, outstanding for their buildings; outstanding among these are the Kunsthaus in Graz, Austria by Cook and Fournier (2003), winner of an RIBA Year Award (2004), shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize (2004) and the Mies van der Rohe Prize (2005), winner of The Technical Prize, Frankfurt, Germany (2005), Architekturpreis des Landes Steiermark Year Prize (2005), and the Goldener Ehrenzeichen (Golden Order of Merit), (2005); Hawley's Social Housing, Gifu Japan (2001), as well as her shortlisted North Osaka Station Redevelopment (2004), and limited competition entry, Pangyo Housing, Korea (2005–6); Weber of swarch’s house 28/33, Buehl, Germany, winner of Weissenhof Young Architect of the Year 2001 and numerous award-winning buildings by Niall McLaughlin Architect’s, for example ‘Bandstand’, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, (2000–3), winner of an RIBA Competition, (2000), an RIBA Award (2002), RIAI (Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland) Award (2002) and Peabody Housing (12 Apartments), Silvertown, London, (2001–4), winner of Fresh Ideas for Low Cost Housing Competition (2001), Architectural Association of Ireland Award (2005), RIBA Award (2005), RIAI Award (2005).

Conceptual Design We have produced a number of award-winning drawn projects such as: cj Lim’s design, one of three short-listed, for the competition GuangMing Smart-City, China, his Virtually Venice (2004), and Royal Academy of Arts Best Work Award, London (2006) as well as his commendations (2001, 2005 and 2006), honorable mentions (2002 and 2004) and First Prizes (2001); Smout Allen’s competition winning ‘Panorama Projects’ RIBA and EEDA (East of England Development Authority) Landmark East Competition (2004) as well as their competition-winning Augmented Landscapes published by Princeton Architectural Press as Pamphlet Architecture 28 and AJ Bovis Award for Architecture, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2005); as well as Patrick Weber’s Royal Academy of Arts Best First Time Exhibitor Award (2006).

A number of design projects have focused on the theoretical role that drawings play in architectural research; these have been exhibited and published in the form of drawings and models, such as Hill’s authored book Immaterial Architecture (2006), Spiller’s ‘Deformography: The Surreal Poetics of Cybrisised Architecture’ published in the Papers of Surrealism (2006) and Haralambidou’s and Manolopoulou’s ‘Drawing FIX’, Multimedia installation in Big Brother: Architecture and Surveillance, EMST National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, (2002), as well as Manolopoulou’s, ‘Techniques of Indeterminacy in the Process of Architectural Design’ (2002) and Haralambidou’s, ‘Deep Drawings, Transient Models and Motion Pictures: An Architectural Investigation of Spatial Representation’ (2002) two research projects exploring the architectural drawing funding by the AHRC.

Interactive Architecture Research into technological innovation is design-led and takes place through the publication of papers and the production of artefacts, through both real and virtual processes.  Such work has lead to fruitful collaborations with other parts of the Bartlett, UCL, and the wider research community. This type of research is coordinated by Gage (as Director of Technology), whose own research includes interactivity in design, developed through two funded projects, Interactives in Buildings (2000-2002) with Pringle Brandon Architects and Agent based Interactives (2005-6), as well as the work of Glanville on design and cybernetics. ‘Blusher’ (2001-2) and ‘Kielder’ (2004-) experimental interactive installations by sixteen*(makers), including staff members Ayres and Sheil have been supported by the Crafts Council and Art and Architecture Partnership at Kielder respectively and extensively published. Nick Callicott (lecturer at the BSA from 1995-2003) and then Ayres were part-funded by the London Technology Network to be Business Fellows from 2003-5.

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Architectural Criticism/History/Theory

Across history, theory and criticism our impact on architectural research has been to combine intellectual rigour with creative flair, and to emphasize the experience of the user of architecture. Areas of interest are broad, but tend to focus on the critical and cultural interpretation of Western architecture in the past two centuries. Particular areas of expertise include histories and theories of urbanism, aesthetics, architecture and art, consumption, digital technology, feminism and gender, space, and contemporary criticism. Co-ordinated under the general leadership of Borden (as Director of Architectural History and Theory), the eight members of staff working in this area include Dr Jan Birksted, Professor Iain Borden, Ben Campkin, Professor Adrian Forty, Dr Barbara Penner, Dr Peg Rawes and Professor Jane Rendell.

Research in the area of Architectural History, Theory and Criticism falls into three themes:

Architectural and Urban History Our contribution to architectural history has been particularly significant in redefining the field by including new objects of study for architectural history and substantially rethinking architectural historical methodology from a critical and interdisciplinary perspective, engaging with scholarship in art history, feminist, post colonial and critical theory, cultural studies, geography, anthropology in contributions to architectural history through authored papers and books and co-edited volumes such as Borden’s The City Cultures Reader, (2003), Penner’s co-edited Constructing the Interior, (2004) as well as as Campkin and Cox (eds) Dirt: New Geographies of Cleanliness and Contamination (2007). In this area we have sought to extend architectural and urban history to include everyday spaces, and the role of the user, for example sole authored books such as Borden’s Skateboarding, Space and the City: Architecture and the Body (2001) and Rendell's Pursuit of Pleasure: Gender, Space and Architecture in Regency London (2002), which look at skateboarding and rambling as critical spatial practices; marginalised urban areas and activities, such as Campkin’s research on dirt in the context of urban regeneration and Penner’s on public conveniences, romance and consumption. This research has engaged art history, feminist, post-colonial and critical theory, cultural studies, geography and anthropology, as well as developing new modes of enquiry combining critical and creative writing modes.

Other work has sought to rethink modernism from differing cultural perspectives: for example Birksted and Forty, in Modernism and the Mediterranean (2004) and Brazil's Modern Architecture, (2004) respectively, have examined modernism in the context of the Mediterranean and Brazil respectively. Borden’s co-edited Transculturation: Cities, Spaces and Architectures in Latin America, (2005) and Rendell’s work draws on post-colonial theory to address questions of architectural and gendered identity within transcultural locations. Spiller constructs an alternative history of modernism by interpreting architectural designs informed by a visual cultural tradition based on romantic intention. Forty on concrete writes a version of modernism which relates this ‘new’ material to memory and history while in Birksted the primary re-working of Corbusian scholarship re-connects this ‘modern master’ to freemasonry.

We have made a significant impact in the area of design criticism, producing innovative work which reinvents criticism in relation to creative practice in both architectural design and fine art, and locates architectural theory at the intersection of philosophy and aesthetics in such sole authored works as as Hill’s Actions of Architecture (2003), Spiller’s authored Lost Architectures, (2001) and Visionary Architecture (2006) and edited Cyber_Reader (2002); Rendell’s, Art and Architecture: A Place Between (2006) and her project  ‘Site-Writing’ , as well as articles such as Rawes’, ‘Reflective Subjects in Kant and Architecture’ (2006) and authored book Irigaray for Architects (2007).

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We have adopted a strategic approach to architectural research that intersects design and criticism/history/theory within architecture and across other disciplines, involving internal and external collaborations, identifying new areas of knowledge and setting research agendas through editorial and curatorial practice.

Editing
We have an impressive track record to date in identifying emerging new forms of design research through edited collections such as Spiller’s, Young Blood (2001) and Reflexive Architecture (2002); Lim’s, How Green in Your Garden? (2003) and the three Realms of Impossibility (2002); Sheil’s, Design through Making (2005) and Allen, Borden, Cook and Rachel Stevenson (eds), Bartlett Works (2004). Editorial projects have also explored the intersection of innovative design and critical theory such as Borden’s co-edited The New Babylonians (2001) and Borden and Rendell’s co-edited The Unknown City: Contesting Architecture and Social Space (2001). From 2001-7 the BSA has held a series of international conferences examining particular thematics in current architectural research. Commencing in 2002, ‘Opposites Attract: Research by Design’, organized by Hill and Rendell, investigated design as a mode of architectural research, published as Hill (ed.) Opposites Attract: Research by Design, (2003). ‘Critical Architecture’ (2004), a two day international refereed conference, organized by Rendell and Hill, with Professor Murray Fraser (University of Westminster) and Dr. Mark Dorrian (University of Edinburgh), part-funded by the British Academy (£2000), examined the relationship between criticism and design in architecture, published as Rendell (ed.) Critical Architecture, (2005), and Rendell, Hill, Fraser and Dorrian (eds) Critical Architecture, (2007).

Curating
The Bartlett School of Architecture has developed its knowledge of architectural design processes through curating in the form of Cook’s internationally acclaimed Venice Biennale (2004), and Fournier’s ‘Curves and Spikes’ (2003), at the Aedes Gallery, Berlin, and the Galerie d’architecture, Paris as well as Hill’s involvement in the Whitechapel Gallery, London’s exhibition on Mies van der Rohe (2003) and Spiller’s role in curating Future City, Barbican Galley, London, 2006. Other curatorial initiatives include Haralambidou’s and Manolopoulou’s design for Athens-scape: The 2004 Olympics and the Metabolism of the City, RIBA, London (2003), and Haralambidou, Rawes and Rendell’s, Spatial Imagination, (2006) a one year research cluster funded by the AHRC/EPSRC as part of ‘Designing for the 21st Century’. This initiative examined imagination as a key ‘creative driver’ in the development of innovative and qualitative spatial design processes and brought together an international group of academics and design professionals from 11 disciplines, producing a catalogue, Rawes and Rendell (eds.), Spatial Imagination, (2005), an exhibition, Spatial Imagination, curated by Haralambidou, the Domo Baal Gallery, London, (January 2005), a website www.spatialimagination.org/ designed by Stuart Munro, and a symposium, Spaces of Exchange, CABE (Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment), (January 2006). The Bartlett School of Architecture Lobby Exhibition Space is curated by a small team and has since 2001 hosted a series of three exhibitions per academic term, displaying the work of external artists and architects, for example, as well as staff and student work.

Collaborations
In collaboration with the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, in 2004 ‘Text-Space-Writing’ comprised ‘Flair’ (2004) a text-based installation by artist Sharon Kivland for the foyer gallery space of the BSA, an artist’s book, published in collaboration with Domo Baal Editions and a seminar, ‘Text-Space-Writing’, (April 2004), with seven presentations from staff and post graduate students from the BSA and the Slade investigating the relationship between text, space and writing, published as a web-based gallery. In 2006 The AVATAR group at the Bartlett, in collaboration with the Polytechnic group at Westminster and SIAL-RMIT held the first PODNET (post-digital architecture network) event ‘Spatial Interface: architecture and technology’ at University of Westminster where live robot demonstrations, academic papers, videos and art works explored the configuration and organization of information in space through integrated assemblages of physical and virtual environments, engaging the mobile, experiencing and technologically extended body of the user in the navigation of information.

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In the period 2001-8 we have contributed 25 Conference Keynotes, 74 International Conference Papers, 68 National Conference Papers, 111 International Invited Talks, 135 National Invited Talks. BSA staff have received 8 First Prizes for a Building/Design Project/Book, 4 Competition Wins, 11 Competition Runner Up, 2 Commendations, 11 Honourable Mentions and 2 Awards for a Book/Article.6 members of staff have held International Fellowships, 1 has been awarded an Honorary Degree from a University in the UK and 1 a Doctorate from a University internationally. BSA staff are on the Editorial Boards of 21 Refereed Journals, 8 Peer Review for Refereed Journals and 8 Peer Review for Publishers. 6 members of BSA staff are on Peer Review Panels such as the AHRC and the RIBA, 6 are on International Judging Panels. We are External Examiners at 25 UK Universities and 5 International Universities, and have examined 14 PhDs nationally and 8 internationally. We are members of 49 Societies/Public Bodies/Advisory Groups/Committees and 2 Government Bodies.

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Developing the relationship between architectural research in academia and professional practice, we have links with architectural practices through our teachers, consultants and examiners, our international lecture programme and well-respected Part III course. A project funded by the Royal Institute of British Architects Modern Architecture and Town Planning Trust Award, ‘The Entry to Architectural Education: Widening Access and Assessing the Potential for Success (2004–06)’ involved a detailed statistical analysis of entry information of successful applicants to two London architecture schools, correlated with year-end examination results and final degree classification, with the intention of identifying trends in completion and performance, enabling proposals for strengthening recruitment, selection policy and practice; teaching and learning strategies to support students. We encourage an active relation between research and teaching, employing highly regarded practitioners such as Colin Fournier and Niall McLaughlin as staff members. Design units and specialist history & theory, professional studies and technology teaching groups introduce students to the cutting edge knowledge and methodologies produced through architectural research and practice. In particular, the Diploma has achieved international recognition for its experimental and challenging approach to architectural education, combining critical scepticism with creative innovation. At the forefront of intellectual and formal concepts being developed in the architectural world, Bartlett School of Architecture students have won RIBA President’s Medals awards and commendations every year since 1994. The School has over 1700 applications annually to the BSc, and 500 to the Diploma, and the annual Summer Show attracts 10,000 viewers. Part II alumni are employed by architectural offices such as Will Alsop, Norman Foster, Future Systems, Nicholas Grimshaw, Michael Hopkins, Richard Rogers and many go on to establish their own offices, such as Block Architects, Piercy Conner, Lynn Fox and Softroom. We encourage an active relation between research and teaching. Design units and specialist history & theory, professional studies and technology teaching groups introduce students to the cutting edge knowledge and methodologies produced through architectural research and practice. Staff – all active in ideas-led practice and/or historical, critical or technical studies – test their propositions in company with their students, developing not only the content of their research but also its ethos and methodology. In particular, the Diploma has achieved international recognition for its experimental and challenging approach to architectural education, combining critical scepticism with creative innovation. Much of the work presently conducted in the Diploma programme is at the forefront of intellectual and formal concepts being developed in the architectural world. Bartlett School of Architecture students have won RIBA President’s Medals awards every year since 1994. In 2005 five awards were conferred across Bronze, Silver and Dissertation categories. Visit the Bartlett School of Architecture student showcase. The Bartlett School of Architecture has published various collections which show the work of students and staff past and present. See for example the Bartlett Book of Ideas (1999), and Bartlett Works (2004) distributed by Birkhauser. We are currently working on the Bartlett Book of Ideas 2.

Media and Consultancy
Bartlett School of Architecture staff work with international organizations based in the UK and worldwide, such as CABE, the Architecture Foundation, The RIBA, ARB, the Serpentine, the Whitechapel, the Tate and the Barbican, to promote new understandings of architecture. We also give appearances on national television and radio, for example, BBC World Service Radio, BBC Radio 4, BBC 2 Television, Channel 4 Television, Channel 5 Television, FST Television (Finland), SVT Television (Sweden), Arte Television (Germany), LA2 Television (Spain). Bartlett School of Architecture staff act as consultants for various architects like Alford Hall Monaghan Morris, Allies & Morrison, J & L Gibbons Landscape Architects, and public and private institutions including Cambridge University and Milton Keynes Architecture and Planning Department. For information on: Conferences, PhD Conferences, Architecture &: Interdisciplinary Seminars, International Lecture Series, Summer Show, Lobby Exhibition Space, go to Events.

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While continuing its individually driven experimental and speculative work, ARG aims to open up new lines of research, including a higher level of funded research, with the generic aim of showing how arts-based approaches to research can actively complement and deepen science-based work. Four leading themes are currently envisaged:

 - a conference, The Poetics of Sustainability, will bring together fine art, philosophy and experimental design to explore the ethical and aesthetic dimensions of sustainability;

 - a Spatial Writing Network, in collaboration with KTH Stockholm and the Slade, will bid for Leverhulme network funds to explore the architectonics of writing across criticism, fiction, art and architectural practice;

- Immaterialities will link architecture and anthropology to explore the uses and understanding of the immaterial in the built environment by seeking funds for an anthropologist to work in architecture and an architect to work in anthropology.

- AVATAR, which explores surrealist approaches to the production of virtual architecture, will bid to the AHRC and Graham Foundation for a workshop/network and development of an interactive website.

Professor Jane Rendell
Director of Architectural Research.

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