Design Yearbook 2017

ARC – Architecture Research Collaborative
Architecture is often considered a mongrel discipline, and architectural research is often perceived as borrowing from many other fields from
art history to civil engineering. We set up ARC with the aim of countering this view – promoting architecture as a discipline in its own right.
We wanted to challenge a model of research which dissects architecture into its technical, social and humanistic components so we proposed
a group composed of themes which would change over time whilst maintaining their collective identity.
This year we have continued with the themes we set in 2015: Namely Ecologies, Infrastructures and Sustainable Environments, Experimental
Architecture, Futures and Imaginaries, History Cultures and Landscape, Industries of Architecture and Processes and Practices of Architecture.
In addition, we have a special and emergent theme Mountains and Megastructures which has framed some of our collaborative activity this
year.
Our AHRC-funded event ‘Scaling the Heights’, part of the Being Human Festival of the Humanities, was held in the in the North Tower of
the Tyne Bridge on the 18–25 th November. The event attracted over 400 visitors to an exhibition which included the installation Everest Death
Zone, presentations by a group lead by STASUS (James A. Craig and Matthew Ozga-Lawn) and presentations from speakers across the School
and beyond. A follow-up publication is being planned.
Our commitment to interdisciplinary research has an international presence through the Cambridge University Press Journal arq –
Architectural Research Quarterly – whose managing editor, Professor Adam Sharr, and the majority of the editorial team are based in ARC . A
special issue this year on Biotechnologies for the Built Environment was edited by Martyn Dade Robertson and Rachel Armstrong.
As our numbers continue to expand with Polly Gould starting as the ARC Research Fellow at the end of last year and new colleagues joining
us we have also turned our attention to how we present our creative practice and design lead research. Traditional research is often measured
in terms of the quality traditional publications. However, in Architecture we seek to practice research through a much greater range of media
and outputs. To this end we held a Creative Practice Symposium on the 25-26 th April to bring together practitioner researchers and research
practitioners to discuss the role creative practice has in their own work. This is the beginning of a new initiative for the School as we develop
emerging areas of research which have been overlooked for too long.
Iraq and the Enduring Legacy of Gertrude Bell
Sana Al-Naimi
History, Cultures and Landscape
In my PhD research I investigate the dramatic changes in the built environment over
the last century in Iraq. I explore the enduring spatial implications of Gertrude Bell’s
vision, which not only shaped post-WWI British Mandate Iraq, but also continued to
inform the actions of consecutive governments. Bell introduced socio-spatial changes
aided by the designs of Scottish architect J.M. Wilson. Both skilfully employed their
shared passion and expertise in Islamic and Mesopotamian archaeology in “sugarcoating”
colonialism. I aim to understand how novel architectural typologies and new
space hierarchies contributed to the current cultural and political instability in Iraq.
Acknowledgments:
This research is funded by the Northern Bridge Doctoral Training Partnership. Artwork
by the author based on images from Gertrude Bell Archive, Newcastle University, PERS_
B004B.
Intoxicated Space
Ed Wainwright
History, Cultures and Landscape
From the nocturnal realm of the bar, club & pub, to the divine realm of the church,
mosque or temple, intoxication – seen as phenomena that moves one outside of the
realm of everyday experience – is enacted in and through space. Understanding the
production of the spaces of intoxication, and how intoxication can be produced through
space forms the basis of this collaboration research project and design studio. Working
with installation artists, architects and researchers, Intoxicated Space seeks to explore
the experience, politics and production of intoxication through practice based research
methods.
Collaborators:
Gareth Hudson (School of Fine Art, Newcastle University)
Students:
Delia Heitmann (RWTH Aachen), Rosie O’Halloran, Tom Saxton, Matt Sharman-
Hayles (APL, Newcastle University)
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