Journal article

689c67b560992.pdf

Urban rooms as a methodology

Urban rooms and the expanded ecology of urban living labs, August 2025

This paper is for a 'Living Labs: Agents for Change' special issue of the Buildings and Cities journal. It draws on a decade of 'live' work developed using the urban room methodology to foster co-production in Castlegate, Sheffield. The ‘urban room’ (UR) is an embryonic spatial typology for diverse actors and citizens to co-create city futures. This paper examines how the situated, hybrid and participatory methods of the URs compare with the 'laboratisation' of the world by the more established methodology of Urban Living Labs. This reveals similarities and differences in building community and civic resilience. URs are positioned as place-based infrastructures and active sites of multiplicity, where diverse communities can transform the city, decentring experts in urban transformations. A UR case study of collaborative civic regeneration in Castlegate, Sheffield, UK, is explored through a situated and diffractive analysis, revealing how the UR provides new tactics that engage diverse actors and give voice to marginalised people. This long-term, situated and additive practice can transform the diversity of engagement, foster a plurality of urban futures and create novel forms of hybrid governance.Urban rooms and the expanded ecology of urban living labs - Buildings and Cities JournalJournal Article, Design, Inclusivity , Participation, Placeshaping, Carolyn Butterworth, Emre Akbil

AArchitecture article

A Frog's Eye View, 2024 - 2025

The article discusses the ‘new nature writing’ through the work of Roger Deakin. It questions if access to nature is equal and if everyone has the right to it. Naina Gupta, ‘A Frog’s Eye View’ in AArchitecture 49, Architectural Association School of Architecture Publication (2025).Journal Article, History and Theory , Inclusivity , Naina Gupta

The role of swimming pools in FDR's vision of polio rehabilitation at Warm Springs

Physiotherapy and Play, 2024 - 2025

In the early twentieth century Franklin Delano Roosevelt contracted polio, which left him paralysed from the waist down. In search of a 'cure' he found the mineralised waters of Warm Springs in Georgia, USA. In due course, FDR in collaboration with his physiotherapist Helena Mahoney, and his architect Henry J. Toombs founded a polio rehabilitation clinic which set out a holistic definition of rehabilitation. In this article I discuss the role that was played by the swimming pools, and the centre, towards forwarding a definition of rehabilitation that involved physiotherapy and play towards reconstituting the sense of self of the person with disabilities during a time when disability was less understood and accepted. I argue for the role that architecture played in the treatment plan. The article uses archival research in conjunction with biographical research to layer the public and the private intentions of FDR portraying an alternative way of reading the project within FDR's presidential timeline. The focus is on Warm Springs and its design while FDR was directly involved in the project; however, but the article also questions the consequences of his celebrity on the knowledge and the legacy of the project. Naina Gupta, ‘Physiotherapy and Play: The role of the swimming pools in FDR’s vision of polio rehabilitation at Warm Springs’ in arq: Architectural Research Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, special issue Vol 28; “Histories of Disability and Deafness in Architecture, ed by Nina Vollenbroker and Stylianos.Journal Article, History and Theory, Inclusivity , Naina Gupta

Designing for the Climate Emergency

Reflection on use as a studio teaching tool, 2024 - ongoing

In support of the recent publication by Aidan Hoggard and others titled "Designing for the Climate Emergency", Sam Brown and Rachel Harris have organised sessions with design studio teaching staff at the Sheffield School of Architecture intended to introduce the book to key staff and support its use in studio. The sessions included an overview of the book's structure and content and an invitation to feedback on the experience of using it directly with students, to be compiled into a reflective piece at the end of the academic year. The feedback will be provided to the authors and publishers to inform further editions of the book. A concurrent strand of work aims to promote the use of the book with students so that design studio work explicitly addresses the challenges of the climate emergency in a manageable way aligned with students' progression through the undergraduate and post-graduate courses.Journal Article, Climate Emergency, Pedagogy, Sam Brown, Rachel Harris

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15710882.2023.2268596

Co-production

Co-designing a housing and livelihood toolkit with low-income older people for future housing in Klong Toey, Bangkok, Thailand, August 2023

The purpose of this article is to examine the co-design process of a research project which was implemented to support an initiative led by low-income older people in Klong Toey, Bangkok. The primary objective was to co-produce a design toolkit that can guide the development of live–work housing for low-income older people in Klong."Many congratulations on this publication. Thank you all for your support." Prof. Karim Hadjri SSoA Journal Article, EDI, Placemaking, Satwinder Samra

Downtown Cairo is many things, however, it is not a haven for cyclists.www.aucegypt.edu/news/auc-university-sheffield-students-collaborate-boost-egypts-first-bike-share-program

Live projects

Cairo Bike Project, 26th September - 4th November 2022

The Cairo Bike Live Project took place in Cairo, Egypt as part of the University of Sheffield School of Architecture's Live Projects Programme 2022-23. It explored the ongoing initiative by the Cairo Governorate and UN-Habitat to establish a bike-sharing scheme within wider efforts to decarbonise the Downtown area of the city. The Live Project was set within a longer-term collaboration between the Architecture Department at the American University in Cairo and the Egyptian office of UN-Habitat, with Egyptian architecture students undertaking analysis of the bike sharing scheme as part of a course in urban design. The Live Project itself invited students from the UK to visit Cairo and collaborate with local students to develop a period of fieldwork designed to understand how the bike scheme's pilot phase is perceived by residents and citizens in order to offer insight and proposals for future phases. The Live Project was funded by the University of Sheffield School of Architecture and made possible by local facilitation in the field by Momen El-Husseiny, Associate Professor of Architecture and Urbanization at the American University in Cairo.Journal Article, Film, Climate Emergency, Pedagogy, Participation, Sam Brown

Press article contribution, Novara Media

This is How Britain Can Actually Prepare for Extreme Weather, 26th July 2022

Contribution to a press article exploring the resilience of our homes in the 2022 heat wave. Press Article, Climate Emergency, Building Performance, Rachel Harris

Metropolis meltdown: the urgent steps we need to take to cool our sweltering citiesAll over the world, temperatures in urban areas are rocketing. What can we do? Axe air-con, whitewash roofs, unleash buried rivers – and try to be a bit more like Norwich

Press article contribution, The Guardian

Metropolis meltdown: the urgent steps we need to take to cool our sweltering cities, 14th July 2022

Contribution to and direct quote to an article written by Oliver Wainwright during the 2022 summer heat wave.Press Article, Climate Emergency, Building Performance, Rachel Harris

Book chapter contribution

Collaborative Design and Practice: A New Future for Architecture Together, April 2022

Invited to contribute to a book chapter Authored by Fielden Clegg Bradley Studios detailing my collaboration with them in incorporating FCBS Carbon calculator into my Y3 E&T module teaching and assignment. Chapter titled: 'Getting to Grips with Embodied Carbon: How a Collaborative approach made FCBS Carbon more resilient, easier to use and more relevant to the climate crisis.'Book, Climate Emergency, Building Performance, Pedagogy, Rachel Harris

220411a The Pavilion as ‘Research by Design’ Method: Layered concepts of ‘design’ and ‘design research’ in architecture.pdf

Layered Concepts of 'Design' and 'Design Research' in Architecture

The Pavilion as ‘Research by Design’ Method, Spring 2022

My research interests in the field of ‘architecture and time’ have a fundamental nature seeking common or universal patterns that may be true throughout architecture and perhaps even throughout all design disciplines. To approach this research I have needed to consider what would constitute a suitable research platform or vehicle. In this article passage I discuss the merits of the 'architectural pavilion' in 'design research'.Doctoral Times - Research Methodologies, Issue 22, Spring 22 - Page 10 - Danni Kerr:https://www.flipsnack.com/tuostimes/doctoral-times-research-methodologies-issue-22-spring-20.htmlJournal Article, EDI, Pedagogy, Material Cultures, Jennifer Kerr

Charitable work

Protecting the livelihood of vulnerable residents in Klong Toey, Bangkok, Thailand, July 2020 - July 2021

AHRC GCRF urgency grant in collaboration with our alumni at Kasetsart University in Thailand. Value: £100,000.Journal Article, Climate Emergency, Participation, Satwinder Samra

Image Equality Project Introduction and Links.docx

Student resource and research

Image Equality Project, 2020 - ongoing

The Image Equality Project has the simple aim of creating a more diverse range of source images of people, for students to use in their design work. The initiative was established in 2020, to create an open access resource for the School that offers png and CAD/vector line images of people that are more diverse in their: ethnicity, ability, activity and social grouping. It is hoped that this will enable students to inhabit their work with people that are more specific and relevant to context, programme, location, brief, agenda and approach.‘Intersectionality’ was used as a critical framework to develop the inclusive archive of bodies that could otherwise disappear in intersectional margins. Intersectionality is a Black feminist concept introduced by Kimberle Crenshaw and was initially used for critiquing discrimination and/or exclusion of black women in feminist and anti-racist politics. Thus it is important to produce embodied representations at different intersections: black+women, asian+disabled, non-binary+white.By introducing 2nd Year undergraduate students to Crenshaw's work and in enabling them to reconsider how we categorise and discriminate by the representation of peoples in their design work, students started to collect a more diverse set of representative people and consider in more depth the implications of their decisions. It also provoked students to consider how the representation of people in their work conveyed a socio-ethical position about their values as an architect. The archive of source images is a live resource that students are encouraged to contribute to, in order to keep it diverse, relevant and useful.Journal Article, EDI, History and Representation, Pedagogy, Emre Akbil and Leo Care

Decarbonise your House NOW Exhibition GuideFirst Edition 211126.pdf

Exhibition and research

Decarbonise your house now, 2020 - 2022

Acting as a research mentor I supported Editional Studio to develop The Decarbonise Your House Now! guide and exhibition.The research commissioned by the RIBA explores the barriers that small practices play in communicating the importance of environmental upgrade to their domestic clients. The research culminated in an exhibition of experimental building fragments exhibited in Editional Studios local high street shop.Exhibition, Research Publication, Climate Emergency, Material Cultures, Building Performance, John Sampson

Research-led teaching at SSoA

Everyday Reflexivity, Tacit Dimension and Contemporary Relevance: research-led teaching in Master’s written dissertation at the Sheffield School of Architecture, 2020

‘Everyday Reflexivity, Tacit Dimension and Contemporary Relevance: research-led teaching in Master’s written dissertation at the Sheffield School of Architecture’, Contemporary ArchitectureJournal Article, EDI, History and Representation, Satwinder Samra

FINAL - Pelsmakers et al.docx.pdf

Digital teaching and learning

Architecture design studio in uncertain times, 2020

Traditionally, much architecture teaching and learning takes place face-face between tutor and individual students in design tutorials, where tutors actively demonstrate architectural design-thinking and ‘reflection in action', often by improvisational drawing with the student. Design tutorials traditionally also take place in an architectural design studio, which is both a physical space (where students have their own desk), as well as a community space where peer-peer learning, and an architectural dialogue and culture is established. Students also regularly ‘pin up’ their design work in (semi-)public for face-face feedback on design development from tutors, guests and peers. For a host of reasons, there has been an increasing shift in reduction of studio spaces, reduced hours for design studio teaching and an increase in digital education, further exacerbated by the current health pandemic. The question is, How can this improvisational drawing, reflection in action and peer-peer learning still be achieved in this digital environment? Journal Article, Digital Learning, Pedagogy, Aidan Hoggard

A Part of and Apart From - Published.pdf

Reflections on student projects

A Part of and Apart From, March & September 2019

A workshop delivered in March 2019 by the authors and MArch students at the ‘School Fundamental’ Festival, Bauhaus, Dessau. The event marked 100 years of the Bauhaus and 20 years of SSoA Live Projects, providing an excellent opportunity to reflect upon our live pedagogical experience within the context of the Bauhaus legacy. The workshop addressed the polarisation that can occur when discussing different types of student projects, using a matrix of four, commonly used terms: real, deliverable, speculative, abstract. Outcomes revealed how a student project can have value as both ‘a part of, and apart from’ the external world. A paper reflecting on the findings of the workshop was presented at the AAE 2019 conference at University of Westminster April 2019 and submitted to the AAE peer-reviewed journal Charette (pending).Event, Journal Article, Presentation, EDI, History and Representation, Pedagogy, Participation, Carolyn Butterworth and Leo Care

Research-led teaching at SSoA

The Ordinary Field and Tacit Dimension in Written-based Dissertation at School of Architecture, January 2019

This work-in-process paper presents the strange necessity and strategic role of dissertation writing within professional architectural education in the UK, through analysing two selected M.Arch dissertations from Sheffield School of Architecture. The paper proposes an alternative direction for the written-based dissertation project which links research at Master’s level back to the ordinary field of architectural profession and pedagogy, and engages with more down-to-earth, cross-disciplinary, and tacit issues and dimensions in architecture.This will build upon the previous paper by Ren, Kiang and Samra ‘Design Investigation, Design Illustatration and Design Intervention in Reserch Led Design’, published in Urban and Architecture Magazine Sept 2017. Authors already have commitment from this journal for publication of new output.Journal Article, EDI, Pedagogy, Satwinder Samra

field-108-akbil.pdf

Image equality project

(Not Just) A Skin-Deep Image Problem, 2019

This provocation asks, in this age of image saturation: how can we represent people in our architectural designs that are specific, appropriate, representative and diverse? Using Kimberlé Crenshaw’s notion of intersectionality, the paper explores the potential of an ‘image equality archive’ created in The University of Sheffield's School of Architecture, to act as an interactive resource for students to question, examine and evaluate the representation of peoples in their design projects. The paper explores the minefields that reside in architectural representation of human figures due to colonial structures that remain untouched. The archive then is proposed as a tool to open conversations around these structures that tend to make figures at categorical intersections invisible. Finally the paper ends with future uses of the archive and a speculative institutional framework that could grow around it in order to ensure that conversations remain open and sustainable in terms of its capacity to make structural changes within the architectural pedagogy of design projects across the school. Journal Article Website: https://www.field-journal.org/article/id/108/ Journal Article, EDI, History and Representation, Pedagogy, Emre Akbil and Leo Care

Pedagogy

Study Material: increasing its effectiveness, 2018 - ongoing

Reading lists (sometimes called study or reference material) are often long, non hierarchical, lists presented to students with no context, and usually as full book titles at the end of project briefs. Anecdotally, or at least through marking submitted papers over the last 8 years, I have seen papers submitted regularly that make no reference to the reading lists. This scholarship aims to test if this really is the case and to look at best practice examples, through action research, of how reading lists could be presented more effectively. In addition, this project looks critically at instances of 'male, pale and stale'.Journal Article, EDI, Pedagogy, History and Representation, Stuart McKenzie

Urban leisure spaces

Urban subversion and mobile cinema: Leisure, architecture and the “kino-cine-bomber”, April 2018

This paper introduces our bicycle-based cinema device—the “kino-cine- bomber”—as a vehicle to reimagine disused buildings and obsolete urban infrastructure for re-activated public leisure spaces. It is also a vehicle to conceptualize theoretical relations between leisure, architecture, cinematic geographies and urban spaces. Through these lenses, we focus on a series of Situationist-inspired methods using the kino-cine-bomber to identify buildings that could be removed—as architecture by subtraction—in Coventry (UK). There, the River Sherbourne flows hidden beneath the city, culverted and capped, a relic of postwar urban planning no longer fit for purpose.We explore river “daylighting” plans by postgraduate architecture students using the kino-cine-bomber, first to trace the hidden river beneath the city streets, then to project architectural designs where buildings may be repurposed and the river revealed. We discuss the possibilities of these designs and, befitting a paper celebrating Situationism, we close with a manifesto for urban leisure spaces.Urban subversion and mobile cinema: Leisure, architecture and the “kino-cine-bomber”Journal Article, Climate Emergency, History and Representation, Placemaking, Building Performance, Simon Baker

Urban design and planning

New Neighbourhood Planning: The Future of the Food Axis, January 2018

This paper considers the evolving relationship between our two most basic human needs; to eat and to dwell. The phenomena of cooking released us from the constant need to feed and thus allowed us the time to develop culture, agriculture and ultimately civilization. The Food axis, a term coined by Elizabeth Collins Cromley, is the principal structure about which food related spaces are arranged from acquisition to disposal. Throughout the history of the home, the food axis has undertaken periodic redefinition in response to the social, economic and political context of the time. This study projects the future of the food axis. At the beginning of the 21st century the supermarket reigned supreme and the rise of convenience resulted in a deepening disconnection between people and their food sources. This detachment has contributed to the deterioration of health with the rise of obesity and sedentary lifestyle while allowing the individual to disregard their impact on the environment through participation in unsustainable food practices and waste. Can collective action transform waste and waste space into a valuable resource, adding to the quality of life for the neighbourhood, establishing a sense of community/ shared activity and contributing to health benefits, food knowledge and general well-being? It is estimated that 7.3 million tonnes of food waste is generated every year by households in the UK. Our evolving relationship with food and a renewed environmental awareness and responsibility to waste will inform the new public health paradigm.This paper will trace a history of the home, looking specifically at back to back housing in Leeds and Public Health Initiatives to propose a new neighbourhood utility. The proposition re-appropriates the obsolete sites of previous communal wash and latrine facilities to address current needs including waste disposal, energy and food production. The new model can be utilised as a strategy to reuse leftover urban space through the setting up of an enabling infrastructure that is taken over by local residents.HEALTH: THE DESIGN, PLANNING AND POLITICS OF HOW AND WHERE WE LIVEConference AMPS, Architecture_MPS; University of the West of England25—26 January, 2018Page 282Journal Article, Book, Climate Emergency, Placemaking, Material Cultures, Simon Baker

Campus development

Remapping the Learning Landscape Across Campus, 2018 - 2020

The 'remapping learning landscapes' project was an interdisciplinary research project exploring how students and staff used and perceive learning spaces around the University of Sheffield Campus.Our aims:

To capture narratives of learning linked to different spaces among students and staff
To explore potential differences by discipline, nationality, social background, and gender
To experiment creatively with different ways of using spaces for learning
To draw out implications for student learning strategies, staff pedagogy and spatial design and management.

Our approach:

Conducted 30 walk-with interviews with students from Architecture, Education, Chemistry, Psychology and the Information School to learn more about how students currently experience the campus as a learning landscape.
Interviews with members of staff from each department Experiment phase:
Build on what we have learned about what students and staff do, to more creatively engage participants in experimental methods in different spaces around campus.

Remapping Learning LandscapesJournal Article, Event, Presentation, EDI, Pedagogy, Leo Care

A cross-disciplinary, arts-based research project funded by the AHRC Connected Communities programmearoundthetoilet.wordpress.com/

Student resource

Around the Toilet: Design Toolkit, 2018

The Design toolkit was one strand of the Around The Toilet research project, that aimed to create an online resource to help students to understand the importance of toilet design and engage them in the challenges of creating better toilets. The work incorporated gender and disability studies with architectural design and research. The work and outputs from the project were presented at the Disordinary Architecture conference at UCL in March 2018.The project was AHRC funded.Journal Article, Toolkit, Website, EDI, History and Representation, Pedagogy, Participation, Building Performance, Leo Care

Architectural theory

Superstudio’s lost project for Sheffield, 2018

In my recent research, I have discovered a previously unknown project by the Italian architectural theorists Superstudio for Sheffield, which was part of their Continuous Monument project of 1969. In Superstudio’s presentation of the project one of the montages is entitled 'Coketown Revisited’, without any reference to a specific location. I have identified the background as a photograph of a street in Sheffield taken by Roger Mayne. I have also identified the location of the street (demolished in the 1970s). From this information it has been possible to reconstruct the full plan and extent of the project. At over 2 miles long and 67m high, it dwarfs all of the other major architectural projects for Sheffield that were being carried out in the 1960s, including Park Hill, Hyde Park, Kelvin and the Tinsley Viaduct. I have already produced plans and new photomontages showing the scale and impact of the structure on the city.So far, I have given two talks on this research, the first to accompany the S1 Love Among the Ruins exhibition and the second at the Sheffield Modern Architecture Weekender. I would now like to develop a journal article about the topic. Journal Article, Presentation, EDI, History and Representation, Building Performance, Material Cultures, Placemaking, Archival, Russel Light

AAE 2017 Slides Final.pptx

AAE Conference 2017 Extended Abstract CB.docx

AAE Conference 2017

Mind The Gap - live pedagogy in an era of localism, September 2017

A joint-authored presentation given at AAE 2017, Oxford Brookes University with MArch graduate and PhD candidate Tom Moore.“We present this work as a reflection upon the evolving role of ‘live pedagogy’ as a critical and transformative practice that operates simultaneously in academia and in real urban contexts. The capacity of live pedagogy to empower citizens and build local resilience is apparent now more than ever as the socio-political context shifts towards co-production. This paper will explore the opportunities that our staff and students have ‘to make a difference’ through our engaged teaching and research – to build capacity within local communities, to develop effective design solutions, to open up support networks and access to funding and ultimately to facilitate the production of better quality environments. We celebrate these opportunities while exploring the ethical and pedagogical challenges that arise from them. The ambition of co-production is to close the gap between local citizens and the structures that produce our built environment. We believe our challenge is not to merely bridge that gap but to transform the nature of service provision in the process. Universities and, in particular, schools of architecture are well-placed to become ‘agents for change’, reconfiguring the gap between communities and traditional structures as a place for innovation and transformation, a place to take care, nurture and be ‘mindful’ of possible local futures.”This is part of an ongoing ‘live evaluation’ of our live projects and live works partnerships done via interviews with clients. students and alumni focussing on four case-studies:Doncaster, Castlegate, Blackburn & Barnsley/Dearne ValleyPresentation, Journal Article, EDI, Pedagogy, Participation, Placemaking, Carolyn Butterworth

community-place-initiatives-post-austerity-and-how-a-civic-school-of-architecture-might-support-them.pdf

Community place initiatives

Urban Education Live, 2017 - 2021

This paper is by Urban Education Live Sheffield (UEL:SHEF) – Carolyn Butterworth and Maša Šorn from the School of Architecture, University of Sheffield and Tatjana Schneider from the Institute for History and Theory of Architecture and the City (GTAS), Technische Universität Braunschweig in Germany. UEL:SHEF is part of a co-funded multi-disciplinary research project Urban Education Live (UEL), with partners from across Europe funded by JPI Urban Europe’s ERA-NET ‘Smart Urban Futures’. All UEL partners are engaged in developing models of collaboration between universities and communities. Although their situations are different in many ways, they are similar in the lack of effective and meaningful dialogue that occurs between communities and civic decision-makers in the production of the city. The shared aim is to develop methods of creative co-production that can open up the processes of urban production to those who are generally excluded from these conversations, building capacity in those communities to effect change. This paper focussed on highlighting the challenges faced by Community Place Initiatives in Sheffield (Pitsmoor Adventure Playground, Israac and Heeley Trust) and on their recent collaborations with the University of Sheffield School of Architecture, within the context of the Urban Education Live research project. Through this research we sought to explore ways, beyond these specific cases in a specific city, in which schools of architecture can be more effective in their contribution to local place-based urban capacity building and future resilience.arq: Architectural Research Quarterly, Volume 26, Issue 4Journal Article, EDI, Participation, Pedagogy, Placemaking, Carolyn Butterworth

Research-led teaching at SSoA

Design Investigation, Design Illustration and Design Intervention, 2017

‘Design Investigation, Design Illustration and Design Intervention: Research-led Teaching in M.Arch at the Sheffield School of Architecture’, Urbanism and Architecture, No.261, pp.18-23.Journal Article, EDI, Pedagogy, History and Representation, Satwinder Samra

aae-2017-proceedings_full-paper-Jary Hodgson Moore.pdf

MArch teaching

Reflections on Architectural Education, 2017

This paper introduces the work of students on a joint MArch and Masters level module entitled ‘Reflections on Architectural Education’. The module explores innovative approaches to learning and teaching, whilst encouraging students to reflect on their own learning experience. Comparisons are drawn between architectural and non-architectural, UK and international contexts. The module engages students in wider debate about architectural education and ultimately in actively exploring and shaping practice in the School itself. In doing so it asks the students to consider teaching models employed within other disciplines, and the learning which takes place outside the studio.Journal Article, EDI, Pedagogy, Participation, Dan Jary

Grand Designs Magazine _ Walters Way_Selected Pages.pdf

Retrofit and refurbishment

Walters Way, September 2016 - March 2019

Walters Way is the sensitive refurbishment of an original "Segal House" originally built as part of an innovative housing scheme run by Lewisham council in the 1980s. The refurbishment works are extensive and include a single-storey wrap-around extension, improved insulation and glazing, a renewed rainscreen and a modern spatial reconfiguration to suit a growing family. The work was carried out by the clients themselves, working with other trades and contractors where necessary. The design work was carried out by Sam Brown, working initially with Jon Broome Architects and latterly with MAP Architecture.Press Article, Built Project, Climate Emergency, Material Cultures, Building Performance, Sam Brown

A Certain Degree of Uncertainty - AAE 2016.pdf

AAE Conference 2016

A Certain Degree Of Uncertainty: Embracing Risk In The Thesis Project Via The ‘creative Survey’, April 2016

A paper presented at the AAE Conference at UCL in 2016.“Over the past 10 years I have developed a pedagogical tool in my design studio, the creative survey. In this paper I suggest that this method can help students cope with, and indeed, welcome uncertainty into the design process and I reflect upon the problems, opportunities and consequences associated with this. Referring to interviews with past and present MArch students from my studio I will describe how this way of working has affected their attitude towards uncertainty within their education and within their ongoing careers in practice.I will describe how, in its development, the creative survey has expanded from a single exercise at the beginning of the design process to become the crystallisation of a broader critical methodology for the production of a thesis project that we believe has wider implications on architectural practice. In the writing of this paper I have found the work of Helga Nowotny around uncertainty in science and social science, culminating in her book The Cunning of Uncertainty (Nowotny 2016), to be very useful and much of this paper’s enquiry is developed through the lens of her theories on the subject.”In Sept 2016 I presented the paper to colleagues in MArch to help frame a discussion on how we might encourage more risk-taking and experimentation in thesis projects.Journal Article, EDI, Design, Pedagogy, Placemaking, Participation, History and Representation, Carolyn Butterworth

Provocateurs or Consultants.pdf

Co-production research

Architecture and Resilience, September 2015

This paper presents co-production as the means by which dialogue can be fostered and control devolved to communities, by exploring how partnerships between SSoA, SCC and local partners have been formed through recent activities in Castlegate. Opportunities and tensions inherent in this relationship are often manifested through questions about the role a university can and should play in building community resilience. Drawing on interviews with students, academics and local partners in Sheffield, the differing priorities, timescales and expectations inherent in this partnership are examined, and suggestions made, so that it might serve as a model for future co-production in urban regeneration. In doing so, the aim is to explore how work produced in academia can maintain its critical pedagogical position while still fulfilling a useful role in facilitating co-production in local communities with, and even on behalf of, local authorities.The paper has now been published as an interview in the book ‘Architecture and Resilience’.Journal Article, EDI, Placemaking, Participation, Pedagogy, Participatory, Carolyn Butterworth

'This is not about gentrification’: the pie shop reviving an Anfield street

Participatory design

2 Up 2 Down, 2015 - 2020

Commissioned by Liverpool Biennial and International artist Jeanne Van Heesvijk to co-design and develop a community bakery and retrofit local housing with local young people. The project has been widely published and featured in the Observer and The Guardian. Within my role at URBED I was involved in the design and implementation of both the participartory design process and the bakery fit out. More recently I inputted into an exhibition of the work in at the BAK Gallery in Utrecht running from the 14/09/2019 through to 12/01/2020. I used the experience from the project to create a lecture which I have given regularly as part of the Participation in Architecture and Urban Design Module.http://urbed.coop/projects/trainings-not-yet-exhibition-utrechtPress Article, Built Project, Event, EDI, Placemaking, Participation, John Sampson

All together now_ how to build a social campus _ Higher Education Network _ The Guardian.pdf

Student wellbeing

All together now: how to build a social campus, December 2015

University campuses are intended as social spaces, yet their design often sends out the opposite message. Designers go for unusual shapes in an attempt to portray youth and vibrancy, but these can result in oddly proportioned spaces that are difficult to use. Bright colours, liberally splashed about to make areas seem lively, can feel jarring, and soon date.Outdoor spaces can be just as problematic: think of all those walkways and squares across which students and staff march on their way somewhere else. Many are devoid of communal activity, overshadowed by buildings and lacking greenery. When budgets are tight, this is an area that often suffers.For a social space to function well, the inside and the outside need to be considered together during the design and subsequent use. So how can we create truly social campuses?Journal Article, EDI, Pedagogy, Participation, Building Performance, Satwinder Samra

Best practice

Building Schools: Key Issues for Contemporary Design, 2015

For some time now, school buildings have represented an important field in architecture, and there is an enduring interest in the challenges this design task presents. This publication explains in eleven chapters the central parameters for this architectural typology: The role of the school in the community or neighbourhood, questions of sustainability, flexible spaces for learning, the role of furniture, participation in the design process, learning outside the classroom, landscape design, opportunities and challenges of special schools, and the role of new pedagogical concepts. Each theme is thoroughly investigated and illustrated with numerous buildings presenting model solutions for specific problems or aspects.Journal Article, EDI, Pedagogy, Participation, Building Performance, Leo Care and Howard Evans

Housing development

Space to Park - 2014

Home Improvements, an AHRC-funded Knowledge Exchange programme, aims to improve the quality and value of new housing by enhancing communication and knowledge exchange between volume housing builders and architectural practices. The project is a collaboration between the Universities of Sheffield (lead partner), Edinburgh and Kingston, in partnership with the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA),housing industry stakeholders, including Taylor Wimpey, Design for Homes and Radian as well as 3 practice partners.As one of the practice partners on the project URBED in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh and Design for Homes prepared the Space to Park study. This tests assumptions about parking provision in residential developments using data collected on more than 400 new house schemes in Kent, six case studies, residents’ survey and focus groups.Space to Park has resulted in a web-based, user-generated resource of best practice for those seeking parking solutions in new build residential developments.Its final report and findings were presented at a parliamentary launch in Westminster on 12th February 2014 by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.The project was also nominated for an RIBA President's Award for Outstanding University-located Research.A copy of the full report along with the executive summary and good practice case studies can be found at the Space to Park WebsiteEvent, Journal Article, Website, Placemaking, John Sampson

Copy of A Live Currency Journal Article.pdf

AAE Conference 2014

A Live Currency: introducing The SSoA Live Projects Handbook, 2014

At Sheffield School of Architecture, with fifteen years of Live Projects, we are reflecting upon the value that Live Projects bring to our students’ learning, skills and employability. The Live Projects Handbook is central to this, demonstrating to our students the relevance of Live Projects in contemporary education and practice. This paper describes the Live Projects Handbook, highlighting its key role communicating Live Projects as both complement to and critique of the design studio. Our students gain immediate learning from Live Projects, while using them as critical tools to reflect upon architectural education and practice. The Live Projects Handbook is an important addition to the support we offer our students in this reflective and critical process. Featuring past projects and contributions from clients and students, the Live Projects Handbook makes explicit how Live Projects can problematise and expand upon the roles of the design studio, the architecture student and the architect.Journal Article, EDI, Placemaking, Pedagogy, Participation, Carolyn Butterworth and Leo Care

Healthy design creative safety report 2013.pdf

Approaches to health and safety teaching and learning in schools of architecture

Healthy Design, Creative Safety, 2013

Key findings of this report:

This research has found evidence of innovative and creative ways of teaching health and safety. It has also revealed that such good practice often addresses H&S in indirect ways and knowledge is rarely shared between institutions, resulting in variability of approach and delivery of the subject.
Health and safety is an appropriate subject to cover in undergraduate schools of architecture. There is an academic imperative to the subject and it is not just something that should be dealt with in practice. Many interviewees recognised the need for the subject to be creatively addressed.
‘Health and safety’ is sometimes perceived negatively by students and staff. This is largely due to a misconception that the subject is purely concerned with applying a set of rules in practice.
Live Projects offer an effective context to learn about risk management and issues of health and safety. Students benefit from working with real clients and scenarios, and from an active engagement with the process of making.

Report, Journal Article, EDI, Pedagogy, Participation, Material Cultures, Building Performance, Dan Jary and Leo Care

URBAN DESIGN 120 Autumn 2011 | URBAN DESIGN Journal Issue | Urban Design Group

Urban regeneration

Brentford Lock West, 2012

A new sustainable neighbourhood in Brentford for ISIS Waterside Regeneration Ltd.Within my role at URBED I worked in collaboration with Johannes Tovatt Architects, Klas Tham, Tibbalds and Camlins to achieve an outline planning for a 500 home mixed use neighbourhood.The design process was one of collaboration with the local community based on URBED’s ‘design for change’ technique. This started with workshops run over two evenings at the start of the process in a local café. Residents and stakeholders from the area used the first to develop a shared understanding of the area today. The second evening focused on generating a number of different options for the site through ‘collages’ and plasticine models.The project was Awarded the Urban Design Group Practice Award 2012. The project continues to win architectural awards as it is built out.http://urbed.coop/projects/brentford-lock-westPress Article, Built Project, EDI, Placemaking, Participation, John Sampson

20111031_ALPHA FARM Report Web.pdf

Design research

Alpha Farm, 2011

Alpha Farm: A design-led research study commissioned by Manchester International Festival exploring the delivery of a Vertical Farm in Manchester. The project was a collaboration between URBED, Lancaster University, Cambridge University and Biomatrix Water. The team concluded that by taking a comprehensive approach to the integration of nutrient, water and energy flows within the building a vertical farm has the potential to be developed as a resource ‘sensible’ model. By this we mean that the farm has the potential to grow food using less energy than conventional farming based on the input of large numbers of pesticides and fertilisers and the transport of food over large distances.This resulted in a demonstrator growing project called the Biosphere being constructed at Manchester College that integrated fungiculture, aquaculture, hydroponics and vermiculture. The project won a National PACE Award for Environmental Sustainability.Exhibition, Press Article, Built Project, Climate Emergency, Placemaking, Building Performance, John Sampson

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