PhD Architecture

PhD Architecture is based within the Manchester Architecture Research Group (MARG), and looks beyond technical design to the complex processes and practices that run through the development adaptation and the use of built environments.

We traverse the disciplinary boundaries of architecture and social sciences to open up new areas of architectural research, create new standards of architectural study, and craft new conceptual language to inform and influence architectural policy.

Sitting within the School of Environment, Education and Development allows us to benefit from synergies with Planning and Environmental Management, Geography, and a number of other disciplines.

Through the connections between these disciplines and practices, we have developed a distinctive expertise based on theoretical experimentation, methodological rigour, empirical attention, and a hands-on study of architectural practice, building technology and techniques of architectural representation and mapping. Our research themes include:

architectural history and theory;
networks of architectural expertise;
social studies of architecture;
the politics of urban infrastructures.
We have specialist and research-active staff who provide a rich and stimulating environment for everyone. Many staff are practicing, or have practised, as architects and have strong links with the architecture community in Manchester and beyond.

Although we welcome applications on any subject, we are particularly keen to receive research proposals on topics including:

anthropology of architectural production;
pragmatist turn in architecture;
the mobility of architectural discourse;
the politics of construction;
transdisciplinarity in architecture;
political economy of architecture.