sint-lucas

departement architectuur

• architectuur
• interieurarchitectuur
• interieurvormgeving
• stedenbouw & ruimtelijke planning

• EN
• NL

next Research Training Sessions 2009-2010

Introduction

A new PhD degree (in architecture) has been established in Flanders. Designing will be the core of the research activities at Sint-Lucas School of Architecture. A methodology and framework for this research still has to be developed. The spring conference ‘the Unthinkable Doctorate’ (April 2005), organised by Sint-Lucas and NETHCA discussed doctorates in Architecture in an international context.  A critical overview of the wide range of viewpoints and directions internationally available at the different universities was made. It is clear that more and more universities develop PhD programmes trying to validate the specific type of knowledge in and from practice.  Designing processes as well as implicit and Mode 2 knowledge are made more explicit by research activities involved.

Sint-Lucas School of Architecture, Research and Practice

The Sint-Lucas School of Architecture has an excellent reputation in architecture, both national and international. Many staff members occupy a prominent position in their field. Often, they are part of the scientific committee of colloquia and journals and/or act as experts for the European Commission.  Within the field of research Sint-Lucas has a long tradition. Sint-Lucas has always been at the forefront of developments in the field of Design and Architecture. Recently, Sint-Lucas has participated in the vanguard of developments and collaborations between Schools of Architecture. It has regularly organised international scientific conferences (most recently the international conference ‘The Unthinkable Doctorate’) and co-ordinated international research projects funded by the European Commission, among them AVOCAAD (Added Value of Computer Aided Architectural Design), {ACCOLADE} (Architecture Collaboration Design), Matomium (Architecture and Mathematics). This research tradition at Sint-Lucas received a new impulse in 1999 through the organisation of a research forum guided by Prof. Dr. Gerard De Zeeuw. A group of researchers participated in this forum. Many interesting concepts and ideas were generated. Discussions following this forum led to a long-term policy document on architectural research which gives some important focus points for the future. All this contributed to the creation of a fertile environment for research.  The School currently employs many prominent Flemish architects. Each of these architects and designers has won important design competitions and has been selected for awards by architectural juries. Together, these architects have an enormous creative and innovative energy. The School also has a historical relation to the Fine Arts School Sint-Lucas in Ghent.

Overall goals of the Research Training Sessions

• Facilitate discussions on research directions in the fields of architecture and design (priority);
• Develop research focus for Sint-Lucas (long term goal);
• Support researchers at Sint-Lucas (and others) (consequence);
• Establish international collaborations between schools of architecture;
• Create input for research within the different domains of research and education.
• Prepare researchers for design based research projects or a PhD in architecture (or design)

Proposal

Target group

Architects and designers who are in the initial phase of their research (by design).

Participants may come from architecture (mainly), but may also have a fine arts and design background.There will be a maximum of 11 participants in the group.Some  entries will be available for staff from other design or art departments in the Association K.U.Leuven (product design and fine arts) and for international researchers.

Content of the training

The content of the sessions has to be situated on a meta-level and will deal with research/design methodology rather than with the specific content and/or focus of each specific research project of the participants.Important questions will be: what is research by/through design? And how may this lead up to a research project?  How will this eventually lead to a PhD?  What is the context and what are the requirements here?Some of the topics that necessarily have to be tackled are: research strategies, the use of case studies, learn how to collaborate, unblock some presumptions (apart from any specific discipline).It is important to have a very broad spectrum of both tutors and participants and to confront different disciplines.

Organization

The first series consists of 4 workshops in the course of 2009-2010. Each session starts on Thursday evening and goes on till Saturday afternoon.Each session will be chaired by two complementary people with either international, academic experience or with an extensive design practice and research into practice.Each session is preceded by some input (by mail) from the session chairs towards the participants. A session will be followed by assimilation and a ‘tuning’ process through email communication with the chairs.

Timing:

Session 1: November 2009

Session 2: January 2010 

Session 3: April 2010 

Session 4: June 2010

Proposal for the content of the sessions:

Session 1: CommunicationSession 1 deals with methodologies for furthering knowledge from research, design and practice and with methods to support communication of knowledge. The thread in these sessions is the field of tension between ‘content’ and ‘media’.

Session 2: KnowledgeSession 2 treats different forms of knowledge and how these forms originate. There will be a specific focus on the forms of knowledge present in the domain of architecture and design and on the underlying knowledge processes.

Session 3: ReflectionSession 3 focuses on forms and processes supporting and stimulating reflection, furthering knowledge through a more developed insight. There will be specific attention for practice and design activities. Session 4: Design

Session 4 will mainly focus on applied research and research through/by design and on the artistic creation versus the scientific creation. Different forms of design processes and how they will further the generic knowledge will be discussed.

Tutors

Each session will be chaired by 2 complementary tutors. Session on communication: Gerard De Zeeuw and Rolf Hughes  Session on knowledge: Halina Dunin Woyseth and Fedrik Nilsson Session on reflection: Ranulph Glanville and Adam Jakimowicz Session on design: Ömer Akin and Burak Pak. 

Output

A publication with the results of each session by the participants and the chairs. 

Submission

Participants not belonging to Association K.U.Leuven may submit by a portfolio containing an extensive CV, representative examples of own practice, description of current research project/ research question and a motivation.The fee of 1150 euro covers the 4 workshops, all lunches during the workshop, one diner in the course of every workshop and the publication resulting from the sessions. Deadline for submission: 1^st of October 2009.

All candidates apply by mail at the following address: maaike.waterschoot@architectuur.sintlucas.wenk.be

Bios tutors

Gerard De Zeeuw

Gerard de Zeeuw studied at the Universities of Leyden, Rotterdam and Stanford (mathematics, statistics, econometrics, psychology). He did his Ph.D. at the University of Amsterdam. His main work has been in the understanding of research methods as applied in the social sciences and as related to the use of their results. He is a retired professor at the University of Amsterdam (since 2001), and was director of the Center for Innovation and Cooperative Technology in the Faculty of Mathematics, Computer Science, Physics and Astronomy. Since 1994 he has been Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics, and at the University of Lincoln and Humberside.

Halina Dunin Woyseth

Dr. Halina Dunin-Woyseth is an architect and professor at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO). Since 1990 she has been the founding head of the School’s Doctoral Programme with over 40 Scandinavian and international PhD students. The Programme is opened to PhD students recruited from various “making” professions such as artists, designers, architects, planners, art and design educators and engineers. Her professional, teaching and research experience originated in Urban Design and Spatial Planning-related issues. She has a broad teaching and research practice from Scandinavia and other countries. During the recent decennium she has been mainly involved in issues of knowledge in the design professions. Since 1991 she has edited and co-edited the journal Research Magazine, which documents the development of this field of inquiry in the context of vocational and research education. She has lectured extensively at the doctoral level and supervised PhD students in Norway and abroad. She has successfully served as a main doctoral supervisor for many PhD students as well as been external examiner at numerous public doctoral disputations in Norway and abroad. She has been commissioned as an evaluator by several research councils in Scandinavia and has also experience from assessing EU-funded research.

Ranulph Glanville

Ranulph Glanville has, over the last decade, worked as a freelance, vagrant professor, mainly commuting between the UK and Australia. In the UK he works at the Bartlett, University College London, where he teaches cybernetics. In Australia, he has had a major part in the development of the extension of the Invitational Masters through Practice to the Doctorate through Practice at RMIT University. He also works with other universities helping them develop research, and new courses and projects, particularly the Universities of Western Australia, Canberra and Monash University, Melbourne. He has written on Design Research for over quarter of a century, early on introducing concepts such as research as design and the importance of finding appropriate theory for design within design, rather unquestioningly than importing theories from other subjects. He has a long term working relationship with Johan Verbeke and, through him, with Sint Lucas Architecture. At the moment he supervises PhD students on 4 continents 

Adam Jakimowicz

Diploma – Bialystok Technical University, Faculty of ArchitecturePhD – Warsaw Technical University, theme: “Sources of the Deconstructive Attitude in Contemporary Architecture”Research interests: Theory of architecture (esp. poststructuralist approaches in arch. theories), digital media in design (interpretative and intuitive approaches to digital environments and tools in design)Several publications on digital media in architecture, architectural composition, innovative teaching methodsSeveral international exhibitions: - 1987 - ”Sztuka To Zamach Na Wszystkość” - performance (with J. Radulski, A. Kadysz), Bialystok- 1988 - "Some ugliest pictures of your ugliest face" - Berlin- 1988 – performance and sculpture exhibition, with Volker Nikel, Berlin- 1994 - "E-mail art" – Bratislava, Wroclaw- 1994 - "Abstract modelling"- Glasgow and Luneburg- 1995 - "CAD Works " - Zurich (team)- 1996 - ”Electronic temple Bialystok, Poland- 2004 – „Minimal Landscapes”, Brussels- 2005 – „X-Landscapes”, Lisbon Several International research projects on CAADScholarships at the British Council – University of Porstmout and EU Tempus phare Individal Research grant – study period at the Berlage Institute, Amsterdam.  

social roles for the development of the Information Society Technology and the New Media Culture.

Rolf Hughes

Dr Rolf Hughes, born 1963: BA Hons. (1988), MA (1989), Ph.D. (1994) is a senior researcher at the KTH School of Architecture examining concepts of authorship, intellectual property ownership, and judgment in the formation of professional knowledge as part of the collaborative research project Architecture and its Mythologies (funded by the Swedish Research Council, 2003-2005). He also heads the practice-led research project Auto-poiesis and design: authorship and generative strategies (funded by Swedish Research Council 2005-2007), which examines machine creativity, new media and “post human” design. He has co-edited two collections of interdisciplinary essays: The Book of Models: Essays on Ceremonies, Metaphor and Performance (Open University, UK: 1998, reprinted 2003) and Hybrid Thought (Open University, UK: 2003) and his current research interests include interdisciplinary methodologies, practice-based research, and the pursuit of innovation within reproductive cultures of the copy. Rolf Hughes teaches a course on Practice-Based Research Methodologies at the Konstfack University College of Arts and Crafts in Stockholm and is a member of the board of AKAD (the Swedish Academy for Practice-Based Research in Architecture and Design). See:
www.akad.se <http://www.akad.se>
www.automatic.se <http://www.automatic.se>
www.auctor.se http://www.auctor.se  

Frederik Nilsson

Fredrik Nilsson, architect SAR/MSA, PhD, researcher and critic. Working at Chalmers School of Architecture and at the architectural office White arkitekter, Gothenburg, Sweden. He has taught and lectured at several of the Schools for Architecture and Design in the Nordic countries, and written books and frequently publishes articles on
especially contemporary architecture, architectural theory and the relation between architectural practice, theory and philosophy.

 

Omer Akin

Omer Akin, Professor, School of Architecture, Carnegie Mellon University, is a frequently published researcher in the areas of design cognition and computation. His books include Representation and Architecture (1982), and Psychology of Architectural Design (1986, 1989). Upon completing his Bachelor and Master degrees in Architecture at the Faculty of Architecture, Middle East Technical University (METU) in 1970, he obtained a Fulbright Scholarship for graduate studies in the United States of America. Subsequently, he earned a Master of Architecture in Environmental Systems from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (VPI&SU) in 1972, and a Ph.D. in Architecture, from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in 1979.

He has been teaching as tenure track and tenured faculty at CMU since 1978. He has served as the Head of the Department of Architecture, during 1981-1988; and the director of the graduate programs, during 1989-2000.

His research interests include design cognition, computer aided design generation, case-based instruction, ethical decision making, and design virtual worlds, building commissioning, and automated requirement management.

He is a registered architect in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the Republic of Turkey. He has a small, selective practice. He has served on many professional and research panels and boards, including National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and Educational Testing Center.