Research by design

The second report of the Brussels Centre Observatory (Brussels Studies Institute) collects 8 new contributions on the Brussels metropolitan city centre, after its pedestrianisation in summer 2015. It highlights new findings on air quality, mobility, freight and walkability.

This feeds into concrete suggestions to improve public space, economic dynamics and mobility solutions.

The BSI-BCO proposes to strengthen the pedestrian network between uptown and downtown, and between the two railway stations, Brussels North and Brussels South. 4 axes come to the fore.

Peleman (David), Dagmar Pelger, Luce Beeckmans, Pieter Uyttenhove, Theory by Design: architectural research made explicit in the design teaching studio, Landscapes in transition : interventions between theory and design, in Els De Vos, Johan De Walsche,
Marjan Michels, Sven Verbruggen (eds), Theory by Design: architectural research made
explicit in the design teaching studio, Antwerp, Belgium Artesis University College, 2012,
pp. 431-436

M. Zamfir. & M.Mihaila (2017). Tematică vs. exerciii de arhitectură: tendine în arhitectura contemporană reflectate în atelierul de proiectare la anii iv-v, şcoala de arhitectură _ UAUIM /Theme vs. architectural exercises: trends in contemporary architecture reflected by architectural design studio, years iv-v, school of architecture _ UAUIM articol pentru/article for _ Rezumat: Adesea proiectele din cadrul atelierului de arhitectură sunt doar reacii succinte la tematica de an, atunci când aceasta direcionează prin limite stricte răspunsurile exerciiilor academice. Încălcarea unor limite tematice poate duce în acest caz la fluidizarea soluiilor sau la căutarea unor resurse arhitecturale mai nuanate, poetice sau bazate pe un anumit discurs arhitectural. Experimentarea unor teme mai particulare în formularea limitelor poate deopotrivă îngrădi imaginaia ca formulă de răspuns, şi obliga la analiza unor nuane dincolo de layerele spaiale obişnuite – de citire a contextului arhitectural. Completarea temei cerute la anii IV-V prin tematica de răspuns poate fi totuşi o soluie în formularea unui proiect integrat, dar şi foloseşte la inta finală a şcolii de arhitectură: formularea unui proiect complex coninând deopotrivă temă şi răspuns, şi bazându-se pe un studiu personal al autorului – student, şi al criticului – tutor. Articolul îşi propune să creioneze un discurs pe care arhitectura contemporană îl anună din peisajul exerciiilor din cadrul atelierului de la anii IV-V, şi sa conchidă asupra unor tendine cu plus şi minus, asupra unor maniere tematice. Discursul critic baleiază de la proiectele de an, comune ca temă tuturor grupelor la proiecte cu temă de atelier, care se încadrează în specificul didactic al departamentului Sinteza de Proiectare, de la proiectul de start din anul IV care face trecerea de la ciclul anterior exersat în cadrul departamentului Bazele Proiectării de Arhitectură la ultimul proiect din anul V care anună complexitatea proiectului de diplomă. Sunt investigate tipuri de teme, modalităi de abordare, de relaie cadru didactic-studeni şi studeni-studeni, rezultatele procesului didactic în relaie cu obiectivele propuse. Cuvinte cheie: atelier de proiectare, exerciiu de arhitectură, proces didactic, tematică, sinteza proiectării, discurs critic Abstract: Often, students' projects in the architectural design studio are only brief reactions to the thematic of the year, when this directs by strict limitations the replies of academic exercises. The breach of thematic limits in this case may lead to fluidization of the solutions or in finding more nuanced resources, poetic or based on some architectural discourse. Experimentation of some more particular themes in formulation of the limits can both restricts the imagination as formula response and compels the analysis of nuances beyond the usual spatial layers-of reading of architectural context. Completing the required theme in years IV-V by the response of thematic may still be a solution in formulating of an integrated project, but also used as final target of the school of architecture: formulating of a complex project containing both theme and answer, and relying on a personal study of the author-student and based on the tutor as critic. The article aims to create a speech which contemporary architecture announces from the landscape of exercises in the years IV-V, and to conclude over some tendencies with plus and minus, over some thematic manners. The critical discourse sweeps from year projects, common as theme to all groups, to projects with architectural studio design theme that are fit in the teaching specific of Synthesis of Architectural Design Department, from the start project from fourth year to the last project from fifth year that announces the complexity of the diploma project. There are investigated a few types of topics, ways of approaches, of relation tutor-students and students-students, and the results of the teaching process related to proposed objectives.

Adam Sharr, Kieran Connolly, James Longfield, and Yasser Megahed, ‘The Pleasure’s All Ours: Productive Trades Between Practice and Research’ in Asymmetric Labour, ed. by Peggy Deamer, (New York: Architecture Lobby , 2016)

We're academic practitioners who have offered our expertise to clients as historians and conservation theorists. In particular, we've worked with a University client who's been evaluating a group of modernist structures that are part of its estate to make good decisions about alterations to a listed Gothic Revival building. We've brought academic knowledge to bear on our architectural judgment. In turn, our knowledge has been valued for the guiding logic it brings to projects and for providing a special credibility in negotiations with conservation authorities. We want to reflect here on what we've gained as academics from also being practitioners. We practice through a design research consultancy named Design Office at Newcastle University in the UK. We use the fee income we get from projects to pay studentships that support fees and subsistence for PhD candidates. These doctoral students labor on the projects that the Office is hired to undertake. Work from those projects appears in their PhDs by Design, not as a literal catalogue of designs but instead by taking thematic cuts diagonally through the work. And our endeavors have been published as academic research. We will account for three research projects here that have emerged from the opportunities and frustrations of our practice. The first research project is about valuing mod-ernist heritage. Our University client owns a group of buildings constructed in the 1960s as part of an expansion of science in British universities. They have well-composed, if plain, façades characterized by strips of glazing and brown brick, and a subtle

The landscape architecture undergraduate programme at the University of Technology Sydney introduced landscape infrastructure as a subject into its curriculum in 2016. This subject contained two aims relating to the application of landscape infrastructure to an Australian context, extending beyond its North American origins. First, it aimed to identify and test the principles of landscape infrastructure that could be ‘generalisable’ and that exist outside of site specifics or a particular context. Second, it sought novel instances of its application in the Sydney region. Principles were distilled through an evaluation of relevant literature and were then tested through two exercises. The first required students to reimagine The GreenWay, a multifunctional landscape corridor in Sydney’s Inner West and part of a proposed metropolitanwide Green Grid network. Students then applied the framework of landscape infrastructure through design proposals in one of Australia’s fastest-growing urban centres, Parramatta. The findings of this research distilled and clarified the definition of landscape infrastructure; demonstrated the inherent capacity of landscape to act as the conduit for multifunctional, flexible, localised and synergistic infrastructural systems; and highlighted its potential for application in an Australian context. This work supports landscape infrastructure’s position to move beyond the integration of infrastructure within landscape and instead proposes that landscape itself is infrastructural.