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University of Newcastle Upon Tyne Postgraduate Studentship Understanding Buildings: Competing Conceptions of Design and Development The Latham report on the construction industry emphasised the need for more effective, collaborative management of the architectural design process, while the Royal Institute of British Architects has, through a strategic review of the future role of architects, identified the need for a stronger interdisciplinary approach to professional training. These new institutional priorities reflect wider social, economic and environmental concerns which are transforming professional strategies of building development. However, our understanding of the process of building design is currently limited by narrow architectural, planning and engineering debates which suffer from design, physical or technological determinism. In this conventional view buildings are treated as materially similar, technical structures that vary merely in terms of their appearance and location. In particular this conventional view misses the ways in which the interplay of design actors - architects, planners, engineers and other development professionals - shapes the form and specification of buildings. This studentship will adopt an interdisciplinary approach to critically examine how the changing social organisation of the development process shapes the form, design and specification of buildings. In particular it will examine how building design is mutually shaped by a range of development actors; architects, planners, engineers, developers, investors, agents and occupiers; who possess distinct 'ways of seeing' buildings and whose different development objectives often lead to competing design strategies. The studentship will involve; identifying the role each development actor plays in shaping the design of buildings; mapping the cultural, organisational, technological and economic contexts that frame the strategy of each design actor; assessing the relative influence of each professional grouping on the form, design and specification of buildings; and charting the inter-play of actors in the development process. The studentship will draw upon contemporary social studies of the production of urban form and will involve empirical case-studies of new building developments. A qualitative methodological approach will be employed in tracing the design process with semi-structured interviews designed to unravel the competing strategies of each development actor. In this way analysis will unpack the contrasting frames of reference shaping debates around design and specification choices. Building case-studies will be selected by the student in three significantly different development locations. The sectoral focus will be commercial offices because of the range of development actors involved and the economic and environmental significance of the office sector. Applicants will have a background in either urban sociology, human geography, architecture and planning studies or related areas and a keen interest in understanding the social construction of the built environment. Knowledge of architectural design/urban development processes is desirable but not essential. Applicants should have or expect to obtain a Master's degree or a First or good Upper Second Class Honours degree in an appropriate subject. The studentship will be based in a new Department being formed by the merger of Architecture and Town and Country Planning. It will be supervised by Simon Guy who has extensive experience of utilising qualitative techniques to draw together issues relating to building design, social processes and urban change. The studentship will also benefit from wider departmental expertise in the areas of architectural design, property development and management and the sociology of urban design from colleagues in the Centre for Urban Technology (CUT) and the Centre for Research into European Urban Environments (CREUE). University Studentships are tenable for three years and include a maintenance grant of #7,000 from September 1998, which is subject to an annual review, and remission of Home/EU or Excepted Student fees. (Students who are liable for fees at a higher rate will need to pay the difference.) Each Studentship has generous support costs and there is provision to enable students to travel to selected conferences during the course of the Studentship. For further information or an informal discussion please contact Simon Guy, Department of Town and Country Planning, Claremont Tower, University of Newcastle, NE1 7RU, (Tel: 0191 222 5408; E-mail: [log in to unmask]). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Simon Guy (Senior Research Associate) Centre for Urban Technology (CUT) Department of Town and Country Planning, University of Newcastle, Claremont Tower, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 7RU. Tel: 0191 222 5408 Fax: 0191 222 8811 E-Mail: [log in to unmask] %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%