Building on our success in the UK’s Research Excellence Framework and our QS ranking of 5th in the world, we continue to produce research that makes a difference nationally and internationally. We have welcomed many new colleagues to the School and their research interests and activities have enriched our profile. Importantly, we continue to invest in the future and several new staff members are at an early stage in their careers. Our world leading research also leads our teaching and we value the insights our students give us about our work.
We can’t mention everyone or everything we do – but you can visit our research pages where you can find more information about us.
Here are some highlights.
Our growing Early Career Researcher community has had another successful year, with the development of networks and partnerships being a common theme across the group.
Dr Johnathan Djabarouti was recently awarded an AHRC Innovation Scholars Secondment to Historic England which will commence in 2024, for his research project titled ‘Intangible heritage and design in historic contexts’.
Dr Demetra Kourri has co-organised an international, cross-disciplinary symposium on the topic of ‘Infrastructural Flows, Overflows and Shortages’, which aims to highlight the measurement and management of extreme urban conditions.
Kasia Nawratek delivered keynote address at the ATUT 2022 conference in Tampere, Finland entitled ‘Choose your tools wisely: Using dialogical architectural pedagogies for sustainable world’ which will be published in 'Architectural Research Finland' later this year.
Dr Dhruv Sookhoo contributed a chapter ‘A New Kind of Suburbia’ examining strategies for undertaking and communicating collaborative practice-based research to book ‘Collective Action! The Power of Collaboration and Co-Design in Architecture’.
The significance and reach of our research continue to have impact in the Greater Manchester area and beyond.
The research group Inclusive Cities, is led by Professor Stefan White. He was commissioned together with Dr Mark Hammond, Joe Dempsey and Dr Sam Holden by Bruntwood and Manchester NHS Foundation Trust to produce a research-led masterplan for a new ‘Healthy Neighbourhood’ in North Manchester, developed in collaboration with Pozzoni Architecture.
Dan Dubowitz is an innovation scholar, funded by the AHRC to work on a three-year secondment to the UK’s largest private property developer Landsec U+I to transform Mayfield, Manchester’s last city-centre post-industrial wasteland. The findings will inform Lansec U+I’s projects in Glasgow, London and Cambridge.
Emily Crompton’s archival research and engagement work with The Proud Trust, a Manchester based LGBT+ youth charity on the original Gay Centre built in 1988, and demolished and re-built in 2022 will culminate in a public exhibition of photographs documenting the original and the new Centre at Kampus’ public courtyard from June 28- Sept 6 2023. Following on from this work, Emily has begun a research study of other LGBT+ Community Centres in the UK which she hopes to develop into a wider European or Global study of the fascinating spatial type.
We are recognised as being at the forefront of embedding climate literacy in our teaching, and this is directly informed by our research. Our growing research on climate change includes: cities as complex adaptive systems, operational and embodied carbon calculation, circular economy principles in construction, planning for climate change adaptation, nature-based solutions, and community resilience. Two research groups are devoted to research and influencing policy in the broad area of sustainability:
- Professor Ulysses Sengupta leads [CPU]lab: Smart & Sustainable Future Cities
- Professor Yamuna Kaluarachchi leads Sustainable Urban Futures
Dr Carolina Vasilikou’s project ZeroMargate: a coastal climate literacy activator funded by AHRC Design Exchange Partnership in collaboration with the Design Museum and the Future Observatory promotes the re-use of the coastal heritage and seaside infrastructure (historic shelters and other structures) in Margate and re-define them as drivers of change for the green transition.
Our networks continue to expand nationally and internationally. A new research collaboration led by Professor Dana Arnold with the Zaha Hadid Foundation Rethinking Architectural Legacies explores what it means to create a legacy project for an architect or firm, and for researchers, collaborators and potential publics, including students and communities.
In concert with their exhibition FRAGILE BRUTALISM at the modernist gallery we were excited to host SERIA__to present their work on the past, present and future of Ukranian Mass Housing, followed by a panel discussion with guests including Dirk van den Heuvel, Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam on Britain’s approach to Brutalism.
Professor Sally Stone, who co-leads the Heritage & Humanities research group with Dr Ray Lucas, gave Keynote presentations at two conferences: Interior Provocations, at the Pratt Institute/CCA, San Francisco and Atmosphere, University of Manitoba, Canada.
Professor Dana Arnold established a series of international seminars Architecture: Design and Research in collaboration with the Universidade Lusófona and the University of Ljubljana. The series aims to build an international network of shared interest across the architectural sector, and to think critically and philosophically about architecture, design, and research to foster new forms of research enquiry.
