Architecture (Practice-Based) PhD

Architecture at Queen’s addresses issues of architecture and urbanism in an increasingly globalised world, where factors such as sustainability and climate change, identity and heritage, and notions of craft and form, coalesce to create a complex context that architecture has to mediate. Architecture at Queen’s offers a part-time, practice-based PhD (by Practice) for those involved in venturous design practice and interested in the articulation and dissemination of the underlying motivations and potentials in their work: venturous practice is taken to mean those interested in expanding the boundaries of contemporary design practice. Candidates may be at an early, middle or late stage of their design careers and will have either a body of significant peer reviewed/celebrated work, or alternatively have a evidently significant creative trajectory in their academic or speculative outputs (projects and competitions) such as would support this level of enquiry.

Tacit knowledge figures prominently as a concern in this form of PhD (ie by Practice) and the assumption is that candidates remain in practice for the duration of their part-time enrolment (minimum of four years, maximum of six). The evolution of the candidate’s practice and outputs over the term of the PhD is of itself significant and clearly implies the modification of how that candidate practices, this forms an essential component of the research. Recurrent themes within this PhD by Practice include public behaviours (what choices implicit or explicit does the practitioner make, how she/he positions themselves within the profession and the canon), community of practice (to whom does the practitioner relate), and the particular tropes and techniques deployed in the production/delivery of designs outputs.

Research methodologies are focused on the devices of practice itself rather than traditional text-grounded epistemologies - non-textual media will typically form the majority of the thesis. The programme encourages interaction with other platforms focused on design practise research and design-driven research, notably RMIT University biannual Practice Research Symposia based in Barcelona, and the pan-European Community of Artistic and Architectural Research (CA2RE) under the auspices of the EAAE.