Design Yearbook 2017

Research in Architecture
Multidisciplinary research in architecture is flourishing, and we are particularly pleased this year
that our successes in winning major project funding, developing collaborations between colleagues
and building a strong postgraduate research community which are also benefitting students in
the BA and MArch through innovative research-led teaching. 2016-17 saw the launch of Prof
Rachel Armstrong’s Horizon 2020-funded £3.2 million LIAR (Living Architecture) project
and Dr Martyn Dade-Robertson’s Thinking Soils has just won ESPRC funding, enabling us to
recruit a talented group of Research Associates and strengthen our unique focus on Experimental
Architecture. The School is establishing itself as a UK leader in architectural design research; we
had our first creative practice PhD completions from Dr James Longfield and Dr Luis Herna; fine
artist Dr Polly Gould joined our Architecture Research Collaborative (ARC) as postdoctoral fellow
in Design-led Research, and together with Prof Prue Chiles organised the inaugural Architecture:
Creative Practice Symposium (25-26 th April 2017) where this year’s visiting professor Julieanna
Preston (Massey, NZ) joined contributors from across the UK to mentor junior colleagues and
present her participatory project Murmur about the Town Wall.
ARC staged a number of public events which took research into the spaces it is about; Scaling the
Heights, an ARC-organised collaboration held in the abandoned space of the Tyne Bridge’s North
Tower (18-25 th Nov 2016) as part of the AHRC Being Human Festival of the Humanities, featured
the urban explorer Lucinda Grange and had over 400 visitors including local MP Chi Onwurah.
Dr Emma Cheatle recorded birth stories in Maternity Tales in the RVI and Laing (17-18 th Nov
2016) and MArch students presented their Newcastle After Dark research in local night-club Tiger
Tiger (12 th Feb 2017). They were one of eleven linked research groups which ran this year – an
offer which is unique in the UK as far as we know where MArch students can elect to work in small
groups on a research project led by one or two staff – on projects as diverse as studying international
brutalism to building pavilions at Kielder Water. This year we also introduced a new research-led
module in the BA – with 15 dissertation electives offered by staff across the disciplines, further
enabling all students to benefit from the rich research culture in the School.
Ecologies,
Insfrastructures
and Sustainable
Environments
Rachel Armstrong
Samuel Austin
Carlos Calderon
Graham Farmer
Simone Ferracina
Neveen Hamza
John Kamara
Zeynep Kezer
Experimental
Architecture
Rachel Armstrong
Andrew Ballantyne
Carlos Calderon
James A Craig
Martyn Dade-Robertson
Graham Farmer
Simone Ferracine
Matthew Ozga-Lawn
Futures and
Imaginaries
Nathaniel Coleman
James A Craig
Martyn Dade-Robertson
Josep-Maria Garcia-Fuentes
Matthew Ozga-Lawn
Stephen Parnell
Ian Thompson
History, Cultures and
Landscape
Samuel Austin
Andrew Ballantyne
Martin Beattie
Kati Blom
Nathaniel Coleman
Josep-Maria Garcia-Fuentes
Claire Harper
Peter Kellett
Zeynep Kezer
Stephen Prnell
Adam Sharr
Edward Wainwright
Industries of
Archicture
Prue Chiles
Neveen Hamza
John Kamara
Katie Lloyd Thomas
Daniel Mallo
Adam Sharr
Armelle Tardiveau
Processes and Practices
of Architecture
Prue Chile
Nathaniel Coleman
Graham Farmer
Claire Harper
Peter Kellett
Katie Lloyd Thomas
Daniel Mallo
Dhruv Sookhoo
Armelle Tardiveau
Edward Wainwright
Mountains and
Megastructures
Rachel Armstrong
Andrew Ballantyne
Martin Beattie
Prue Chiles
James A Craig
Graham Farmer
Josep-Maria Garcia-Fuentes
Zeynep Kezer
Adam Sharr
Visiting Professors,
PhD examiners and
contributors
Amy Butt
Anna Holder
Becky Shore
Catrin Huber
Chris Muller
Chris Speed
David Greenwood
Ian Wiblin
Jane Rendell
Julia Heslop
Juileanna Preston
Katja Grillner
Lucinda Grange
M. Sohail
Neil Barker
Nikoletta Karasthani
Penny McCarthy
Rutter Carroll
Simon Taylor
Steve Sharples
Ye Huang
PhD students
Aldric Rodriguez Iborra
Ali Salih
Ashley Mason
Carolina Ramirez Figueroa
Charles Makun
Cheng Wang
Dhruv Sookhoo
Djuang Sodikin
Hazel Cowie
Ivan Marquez Munoz
James Craig
James Longfield
Javier Rodriguez Corral
Javier Urquizo Calderon
Khalid Setaih
Kieran Connolly
Luis Hernandez Hernandez
Macarena Beltan Rodriguez
Matthew Ozga-Lawn
Nergis Kalli
Ohoud Kamal
Oluwatoyin Akin
Pierangelo Scravaglieri
Ray Verrall
Ruth Lang
Sadanu Sukkasame
Sam Clark
Sana Al-Naimi
Sarah Cahyadini
Sinead Hennessy
Tijana Stevanovic
Usue Ruiz Arana
Xi Chen
Xi Ye
Yasser Megahed
Yomna Elghazi
158 Text by Katie Lloyd Thomas Opposite - Scaling the Heights