Emmanouil Stavrakakis
The Architecture of Linear B
Supervisors: Mark Cousins, Spyros Papapetros
Michael Ventris’ decipherment of Linear B was the more remarkable because he was not a professional scholar. He was an architect who became fascinated by this problem when he was still a teenager, managing to solve it when he was 32 years old. At his death some obituarists suggested that his achievement may have had something to do with his training as an architect. It is the hypothesis of this thesis that while Ventris lacked others’ experience in the field, his advantage came not just from his ‘brilliance’ but also from the forms of analysis he had acquired from his architectural training at the AA in the 1940’s.
2015
Niloofar Kakhi
Identity Disinterred: The uses and abuses of a past in architectural representation of a present
Supervisors: Marina Lathouri, Vida Norouz Borazjani
This thesis follows the development of the historicist understanding of collective identity in the architecture of Iran since the country’s modernization in the 1920s. The architectural approach was a consequence of much broader socio-political conditions and nationalist movements that led to the change of monarchy in 1925 and ultimately the revolution of 1979. In this sense the thesis focuses on the politics of production of architectural knowledge and historiography and follows their academic developments. Ultimately the research aims to construct a conceptual platform for critically assessing representations of identity in contemporary architecture revisiting the almost ignored value of the contemporary as a means of expressing a collective identity.
2014
Alejandra Celedon
Rhetorics of the Plan: Architecture and the City
Supervisors: Marina Lathouri, Pier Vittorio Aureli
Why did the plan dominate architectural discourse and practice for the last two centuries, and how did this affect the discipline? The plan – the site of architecture – reveals through its composition the potential for the production of the essential and typical form (eidos) of a building to emerge. The meaning of the word plan has changed over time, registering and triggering disciplinary changes – the relation between drawings and words, between objects and discourse. Such changes correlate with a shift in the definition and scope of the discipline – from the building, to the drawing (disegno) of buildings as objects, to the building as a device for organising and managing the city – that sees the building as an urban piece. PhD completed 2014.
2014
Emanuel de Sousa
Heterotopia: Reframing Spatial Practices and Boundaries, c.1968 – 2008
Supervisors: Marina Lathouri, Edward W. Soja
The dissertation explores the long history of the term heterotopia from its emergence in biology and medicine in the late nineteenth century, to its appearance in cultural studies in architecture in the late twentieth century. Parallel research investigated the various formulations of type starting from the natural sciences, medicine and social sciences and subsequent appropriations in architecture and urbanism. Special attention was given to the international exhibitions Roma Interrota (Rome, 1978), 10 Immagini per Venezia (Venice, 1978-80) and International Bauausstellung Berlin (Berlin, 1979-87). These were studied to evaluate the renewed interest in ‘type’ and typological variation within ‘specific’ city formations, through the work of Aldo Rossi and John Hejduk, among others. PhD successfully completed December 2013, nominated as AA submission for the RIBA President’s Awards for Research 2014.
2013
Kensuke Hotta
Programmable Architecture: Towards intelligent architecture
Supervisors: George Jeronimidis, Michael Weinstock
This project introduces a new strategy for robotic architecture as an intelligent system, consisting of both autonomous and subservient schemes that maintain a constant homeostasis within its contained environment. Information flow between Genetic Algorithms (GA) and user input prompt this hybrid system to output the consequent, ever-changing physical form. The hardware is an accumulation of self-sufficient machines dedicated to the actions of sensing-calculating-actuating. Each makes its own simple decisions, which collectively turn into a larger problem-solving machine that simultaneously takes central orders into account. As a case study a machine organized using tensegrity-based components of variable forms was proposed. A physical model of this machine has been built and tested via the electrically controlled and wirelessly connected microcomputer chip Arduino. PhD completed 2014.
2014
Patricia Martin del Guayo
Environmental Perception: climate in urban public spaces
Supervisors: Simos Yannas, Paula Cadima
Urbanisation has not only changed the environmental properties of our surroundings, it has also affected our relationship and interactions with them. The way people use public spaces is strongly influenced by the environmental conditions experienced in these spaces. A design that generates a comfortable climatic environment promotes the use of urban public spaces, enhancing social cohesion and improving quality of life within cities. This research project addresses these issues by studying people’s environmental perceptions of urban public spaces. With field studies in Soho Square, London and several locations in Spain the project investigates the factors influencing environmental perception with the aim of developing appropriate design strategies and techniques for improving environmental conditions in outdoor urban spaces.
2012
Winyu Ardrugsa
‘Stranger’ and ‘Home-Land’: Religious Practice and Spatial Negotiations of Thai Muslims in Contemporary Bangkok
Supervisors: Marina Lathouri, Modjtaba Sadria
Situated to challenge the established essentialist understanding of ‘Muslim space’, this research investigates the relationship between subject formations and spatial negotiations through the everyday prayer practices of the reformist Muslims of Bangkok and the processes carried out in relation to ‘urban’ mosques, ‘public’ prayer rooms and ‘else’-where. The thesis argues for a destabilised body-place of relationships though producing specific conditions of spatial intimacy. PhD completed 2012.
2012
Nerma Cridge
Drawing the Unbuildable
Supervisors: Marina Lathouri, Mark Cousins
Starting from a premise that many highly important architectural projects are not simply unbuilt, but rather unbuildable, the thesis defines the category of the unbuildable. Both the unbuildable and the buildable will be revealed as working distinctly, but pertinently, not in opposition to one another. The discussion focuses on case studies from the peak period of the unbuildable -post-revolutionary Soviet Union- including Tatlin’s Tower and the Palace of the Soviets. Speculations on El Lissitzky’s Cloud Stirrups form the basis for the examination of the notion of an architectural series. PhD awarded 2012.
2012
Luciano Dutra
Design Process and Environmental Information: applicability of design support tools
Supervisors: Simos Yannas, Peter Sharratt
2012
Dong Ku Kim
Climate-Interactive Building Design in a Korean Climate
Supervisors: Simos Yannas, Rosa Schiano-Phan
Continuous adaptation to surrounding environmental change is essential to sustain life. Like living beings, buildings can provide a comfortable environment adjusted to outdoor climate variations. This research project focuses on the potential of climate-interactive building design strategies for the high seasonal variations of the Korean climate. PhD awarded 2012.
2012
Choul Woong Kwon
Transitional Spaces: the role of sheltered semi-outdoor spaces as microclimatic modifiers on school buildings in the UK climate
Supervisors: Simos Yannas, Rosa Schiano-Phan
Field observations and extensive computer modelling and simulation studies combining thermal, airflow and daylighting analysis have provided design guidelines on how to achieve acceptable environmental conditions that allow outdoor spaces adjacent to school classrooms to be used as extension of the teaching space without adversely affecting natural light and fresh air supply to the parent building. PhD awarded 2012.
2012
Tania Lopez Winkler
The Detective of Modern Life
Supervisors: Mark Cousins, Teresa Stoppani
The premise of this thesis is that in the 19c the city reconfigured human experience. The main argument is explored using the Private Detective literature of 19c London from which the clue is extracted as a semantic devise and used as tool/site of investigation into urban questions. Secondly, the thesis proposes the literary figure of the English Private Detective as equivalent to that of the flâneur – a figure considered to be hosted in Paris and lacking in London. Both figures provide semiographical readings of 19c capital cities. PhD awarded 2012.
2012
Frances Mikuriya
Time Space Pathologies
Supervisors: Mark Cousins, Tim Brittain-Catlin
2012
Kristine Mun
Vitalizing Technology: on the mode of invention
Supervisors: Marina Lathouri, Lars Spuybroek
2012
Clara Oloriz
Projecting Technology: Systems of Production in 1950s and 60s Spanish Architecture
Supervisors: Marina Lathouri, Carlos Naya
This thesis reflects on the relationship between technology and architecture. In particular, it explores how mass-production and industrialisation in the decades after World War II not only transformed production and construction, but also reconfigured the practice of architecture. Through the analysis of new methods of construction in Spain during the 1950s and 60s, the investigation examines the concept of component design and the resulting production systems from a material, structural, formal and spatial perspective. PhD completed in 2012.
2012
Feifei Sun
Achieving Suitable Thermal Performance for Residential Buildings in Different Regions of China
Supervisors: Simos Yannas, Rosa Schiano-Phan
The purpose of this research was to identify new technologies and applications of existing practices that can significantly improve energy efficiency and indoor thermal comfort of new residential buildings in China. The study investigated and presents this potential for each of the country’s five climatic regions. PhD awarded 2012.
2012
Enrique Walker
The Infra-Ordinary City: George Perec’s Lieux Project
Supervisors: Mark Cousins, Hugo Hinsley
2012
Katharina Borsi
Urban Domestic: The Diagram of the Berlin Block
Supervisors: Lawrence Barth, Mark Cousins
2011
Eva Eylers
Hygiene and Health in Modern Urban Planning: the sanatorium and its role within the modernist movement
Supervisors: Marina Lathouri, Anthony Vidler
The main question centres on the migrations of the programmatic typology of the sanatorium, its engagement with the city and its instrumental role in the debates on the planning of the modern city. Using this specific building type as an analytical device, and considering the medical and psychological conditions posed by the modern metropolis -of which the sanatorium is a product of and a response – this research discusses how the tuberculosis sanatorium provided a cure not only against TB, but against diseases associated with the experience of the city.
PhD Awarded 2011
2011
Pavlos Philippou
Cultivating Urbanism The Architecture of Cultural Institutions
Supervisors: Lawrence Barth, Jorge Fiori
Beginning in the late nineteenth century and becoming codified by the early twentieth, cultural buildings came to acquire a salient role in urban reasoning. The thesis pursues the architectural richness of this reasoning through three distinct but interrelated cases, which exemplify the themes and strategies linking cultural buildings to the spatial politics of the liberal metropolis. Seen in their relation to a complex and persistent urban discourse, these cases allow us to see the continuities as well as the dynamism and differentiation that architecture brings to the urban field. PhD awarded 2011.
2011
Jose Zavala
Towards a multidimensional approach in the design of housing policies
Supervisors: Jorge Fiori, Ronaldo Ramirez
2011
Doreen Bernath
On Architecture of Building the Picture – China And Pictorial Introjection
Supervisors: Mark Cousins, Teresa Stoppani
Projects in contemporary Chinese practices are very often being visualised and even realised on the basis of highly effective computer renderings, known as effect drawings, while representations in plans, sections and elevations become a posterior exercise of ‘fitting into the picture’. This PhD research project traces the link between the employment of pictorial strategies and a long tradition in Chinese visual arts and theatre of an aesthetic preference for an idealised frontal configuration. The thesis examines the capacity to use new forms of digital software, which has furthered architectural design as an introjective process, to be significant beyond a specifically Chinese context. PhD Awarded 2010
2010
Pablo León de la Barra Vargas
Art and Architecture: the creation of space and place in contemporary art
Supervisors: Mark Cousins, Jorge Fiori
2010
Chittawadi Chitrabongs
The politics of dressing up
Supervisors: Mark Cousins, Marina Lathouri
The thesis documents the process of hygiene reforms carried out by King Rama V of Siam who reigned from 1868 until 1910. King Rama V was aiming to increase the royal authority in Bangkok by imposing his distinctive ideas of order and neatness, willing to import and use objects and practices from the west. The argument of the thesis is that Rama V’s reform was not ‘westernization’ but a highly developed fantasy.
2010
Valeria Guzmán-Verri
Graphic form as a system of regulation
Supervisors: Mark Cousins, Marina Lathouri
The thesis explores the rise of a series of printed forms, which start to formally organise ways of thinking across a number of fields of knowledge in the nineteenth century. It argues that the systematic use of statistical and numerical data together with its forms of representation developed a certain typography in which modern architects, urban planners, sociologists, economists and administrators were captured.
2010
Nikos Koronis
The Total Work of Art in Modern Architecture
Supervisors: Gordana Korolija Fontana-Giusti & Marina Lathouri
2010
Kirk Wooller
Changing the Criteria for Innovation: The Architecture Magazine as a Project, c.1956-2006
Supervisors: Marina Lathouri, David Dunster
This dissertation explores the diminishing role of judgement in contemporary architectural writing and the implications this has for the innovation of architectural knowledge. Focusing on the historiographical argument that the architecture magazine provides a site for innovation, the thesis explores particular architectural publications over the last fifty years, taking the publications of Reyner Banham and Rem Koolhaas as case studies of a transition from ‘architectural criticism’ to ‘architectural intelligence’. The research shows how a decreasing presence of judgement disables the possibility of readers taking a position either for or against what is being registered in these publications.
2010
Derin Inan
From Cartography to Master Planning
Supervisors: Marina Lathouri & Mark Cousins
The Ankara Plan: an index of urban discourses in early twentieth century Turkey.
2009
Pedro Ignacio Alonso
The Architecture of Assemblage in the Rhetoric of the New Construction: between the expanded meaning of construction and the turning point of building
2008
Claudio Araneda
Dis-Information in the Information Age City: the size of the American block as an urban anachronism
Supervisors: Jorge Fiori & Hugo Hinsley
2008
Kaarina-Nancy Bauer
Heinrich Wölfflin
Supervisors: Mark Cousins & Dalibor Vesely
2008
Hua Li
’Chinese Architecture’ + ‘Western Architecture’: A false dichotomy
Supervisors: Mark Cousins & Stephan Feuchtwang
2008
Dulce Moreno Marques De Almeida
The Effect of Microclimate on the Design of Pedestrian Areas in Cities
Supervisors: S. Yannas / P. Sharratt
2007
Manuela Antoniu
On Hunger and the Phagic in Architecture
Supervisors: Mark Cousins & Anton Schutz
2007
Marcelo A. Espinosa Martinez
Architecture of negative realities : a discussion about holes in the production of contemporary architecture
Supervisors: Mark Cousins, Marina Lathouri
2007
John Abell
Desiring Spatialities – Architectural Effects: On the Architectural Exposé of Psychosexual Empathy, Form and Space
Supervisors: M. Cousins / S. Yannas
2006
Rachel McCann
The Intercorporeal Experience and Design of Architecture
Supervisors: N. Leach / M. Cousins
2006
James Fischer
An Expansion of the Professionalism of Pierre Charles L’Enfant and its Re-usage by later American Architectural Professionals
Supervisors: M. Cousins / S. Yannas
2005
Nuttinee Karnchanaporn
Fear as a cultural Phenomenon in Thailand with Special Reference to the Spatial Relations of Domestic Architecture
Supervisors: M. Lathouri / M. Cousins
2005
Solange Goulart
Thermal Inertia & Night Ventilation
Supervisors: S. Yannas / P. Sharratt
2005
Rosa Schiano-Phan
The Development of Passive Downdraught Evaporative Cooling Systems Using Porous Ceramic Evaporators and their Application in Residential Building
Supervisors: S. Yannas / B. Ford
2005
Ines Weizman (Geisler)
The Disappearance of Everyday Life in East Germany Since Reunification.
Supervisors: M. Cousins / S. Yannas
2005
Jose Brandao
The Role of Urban Design in Strategic Planning: The Case of Rio de Janeiro
Supervisors: J Fiori / H Hinsley
2004
Bojana Barltrop
Thomas Jefferson and the Politics of Desire: An Architectural Project and its Limits – Jefferson and the Borderline between his Political and Architectural Projects
Supervisors: A. Balfour / G. Worsley
2003
Helena Massa
Urban Aerodynamics: The Potential of Convective Mechanisms in the Cooling and Ventilation of Urban Microclimates
Supervisors: S. Yannas/ P. Sharratt
2003
Ariadne Vozani
The Architectural Correspondence of Space and Speech in Tragedy
Supervisors: M. Cousins / OP Taplin
2003
Jose Javier Gomez-Alvarez Perez
Fragmentary Inner Areas and Urban Development: The Case of a Historic Industrial Axis in Guadalajara, Mexico
Supervisors: H Hinsley / J Fiori
2002
Guilherme Quintino
Vernacular Architecture in South Western Portugal
Supervisors: S. Yannas / P. Sharratt
2002
Benito Jimenez Alcala
Environmental Aspects of Hispanic-Moslem Architecture: An Approach to the Daylight and Summer Performance of Islamic Buildings in Spain
Supervisors: S. Yannas / B. Ford
2002
Andy Siswanto
Urban Design and Enablement: A Study on Indonesian Inner City Housing Redevelopment
Supervisors: J Fiori/ B Mumtaz
2002
Themis da Cruz Fagundes
Between Master Plans and Advanced Information Technology: Is There a Site for Brazilian Cities in the Global Network?
Supervisors: J Fiori / M Batty
2001
Gustavo Cantuaria
Trees and Microclimatic Comfort
Supervisors: S. Yannas / B. Ford
2001
Paula San Payo Cadima
Transitional Spaces: The Potential of Semi-Outdoor Spaces as a Means for Environmental Control with Special Reference to Portugal
Supervisors: S. Yannas/ B. Ford
2000
Zainab Faruqui Ali
Environmental Performance of the Buildings Designed by the Modern Masters in the Tropics: Architecture of Le Corbusier and Louis I. Khan in India and Bangladesh
Supervisors: S. Yannas / B. Ford
2000
Ada Gansach-Wilson
Social Constructions: a comparative study of architecture in the High Himalaya of NW Nepal
Supervisors: E Lebas / Hartman
2000
Ney de Brito Dantas
Chaos in the Drawing Room: Image Making and Image Breaking in the Experience of Urban Regulation in Recife
Supervisors: E Lebas / J Fiori
1999
Thomas Aaron
The Cultural Politics of Architecture: The Rise and Rise of Buckhead in Atlanta Georgia 1952-1994
1999
Ian McBurnie
The Periphery and the American Dream
Supervisors: H Hinsley/ J Fiori
1999
Christine Ann Phillips
Sustainable Place
Supervisors: S. Yannas/ B. Ford
1999
Fernando Rihl
Daylight and Visual Perception: An Investigation of Retrofitted Building Elements for the Enhancement of Daylight and the Modelling of Objects with Reference to the Brazilian Context
Supervisors: S. Yannas / B. Ford
1999
Maria Theodorou
The Experience of Space in Relation to Architecture in the Homeric Epics
Supervisors: M Cousins / P Hirst
1998
Heitor da Costa Silva
Window Design for thermal Comfort in Domestic Buildings in Southern Brazil
Supervisors: S. Yannas / P. Ruyssevelt
1997
Mark Dorrian
On the Irish Clashan Settlement Pattern
Supervisors: E Lebas / Buchanan
1996
Arturo Almandoz Marte
European Urbanism in Caracas 1870s-1930s
Supervisors: N Bullock / J Fiori
1996
Khandaker Shabbir Ahmed
Approaches to Bioclimatic Urban Design for the Tropics with Special Reference to Dhaka Bangladesh
Supervisors: S. Yannas / B. Ford
1996
Young-Bum Reigh
The language of building high: an analysis of the structure and social relations of high-rise Housing Provision in the Seoul Metropolitan Area, 1962-1991
Supervisors: H Hinsley / J Fiori
1996
Camilo Diaz
Optimisation of Thermal Mass for Indoor Cooling
Supervisors: S. Yannas / P. Ruyssevelt
1995
Hatim Mohammed Al-Sabahi
The architectural transformations of housing patterns in the city of Sana’a Yemen
Supervisors: S Damluji / P Oliver
1995
Abdullah Zeid Ayssa
The thermal performance of vernacular and contemporary houses in Sana’a, Yemen
Supervisors: S. Yannas / B. Ford
1995
Jaime Goncalves de Almeida
Public space, utilisation and environment: a study of large buildings in an educational establishment
Supervisors: S. Yannas / N. Bullock
1994
Fuad Hassan Mallick
Thermal comfort for urban housing in Bangladesh
Supervisors: S. Yannas/ B. Ford
1994
Elias Salleh
Microclimatic Control of Outdoor Environment in Public Spaces in the Tropics
Supervisors: S. Yannas / P. Haves
1994
Despina Serghides
Zero Energy House for Cyprus
Supervisors: S. Yannas/ P. Ruyssevelt
1994
Maha Yahya
Forbidden spaces, invisible barriers: housing in Beirut
Supervisors: J Fiori / N Bullock
1994
Leonardo Bittencourt
Natural Ventilation for Cooling
Supervisors: S. Yannas / P. Ruyssevelt
1993
Jose Roberto Garcia Chavez
The Potential of Beam Core Daylighting in Hot-Arid Regions of Mexico
Supervisors: S. Yannas/ N V Baker
1990’s
Nahed El Ghazal
Supervisors: E Lebas / P Oliver
Gordana Korolija
Leon Battista Alberti: De re aedificatoria
Supervisors: R Landau / M.Cousins
Shiqiao Li
Shaftsbury’s influence in the shift from the Baroque to Neo-Palladian Architecture
Supervisors: R Landau
Valerie McLaughlan
Aestheticism in British Architecture: the relation between ides and form in late nineteenth century
Supervisors: R Landau
Gerardo Puente
Min><Max>Mass. Social Architecture and Domestic Environment > Solutions to Housing in Mexico
Supervisors: L Barth /J Fiori
Patrick Reis
Non-conventional housing finance in Ibadan, Nigeria
Supervisors: J Fiori / B Mumtaz
Phillip Tabb
Energy and Village Form
Supervisors: S. Yannas / D Hawkes
1990
Manuel Teixeira
Housing in Oporto
Supervisors: N Bullock / M Sutcliffe
1990
Eduardo Mendes de Vasconcellos
The first modernity in Brazil- a cultural project- architecture and urbanism 1930-1960
Supervisors: R Landau
Andreas Moschatos
Thermal Storage for Solar Space and Water Heating Systems
Supervisors: S. Yannas / C McVeigh
1985
Pyrhos Poulis
Radiant Wall and Floor Heating and Cooling
Supervisors: C McVeigh / S. Yannas
1985