Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, England

Relevance of Doctoral Research in Architecture
Inaugural Conference Organized by ArchiDOCT
Under the auspices of Anglia Ruskin University
Science Centre, FSE ARU, Cambridge, ENGLAND 3-5 July, 2023

Extended Abstract (750 words): Due 23 February, 2023 > SUBMIT HERE

Architecture has always concerned itself with values. Those that it serves, and those that it represents. While this is of course true for its practice, the importance of values is equally fundamental to its research. They are the driving forces for those who desire to build expertise in architectural thinking, creating, and innovating.

Values, as cultural outcomes, are under a constant mutation, that follows the diachronic changes in our understandings, experiences, priorities, and concerns. The formulation of the research questions as well as their outcomes is always evaluated in relation to their alignment with the dominant values directing social practices, policy-making, market dynamics, and contemplations on being and becoming. The concept of relevance, therefore, reflects this alignment and is stated as a value encompassing what could generally be described as societal acceptance.

The conference invites early career researchers (ECRs) to present the relevance of their research projects. We expect these presentations to be vehicles for contemplation on the contemporary understanding of relevance as a creative amalgamation of architectural ethics, sociocultural policy values, technical development, and reasonable aspiration on newness. While the parameters that form and transform the relevance of architectural research questions are multiple, there are always some dominant ones that define the outline of each research project. Therefore, the Conference will organize its sessions and debates on the following three themes:

Theme 1 > Theory-based relevance of doctoral research in Architecture
Theme 2 > Social mission-based relevance of doctoral research in Architecture
Theme 3 > Technology-based relevance of doctoral research in Architecture

For more info about the Conference, click here.

About ArchiDOCT
Established in 2013, ArchiDOCT is a biannual open access peer-reviewed journal dedicated to ongoing or recently completed doctoral research in architecture. Since its foundation from the European Network of Heads of Schools of Architecture — an EU funded Network in the framework of the Lifelong Learning Programme .

One of the journal’s key aims is to challenge the confinement of doctoral-level knowledge production within institutional bounds, often under the pretext of intellectual property protection. Moving beyond such confinements can open productive paths toward the enhancement and cross-pollination of research in architecture within a broader global network of researchers.

ArchiDOCT invites contributions based on the broader domain of architecture, and its affiliations with architectural design, the ethics, politics and aesthetics of architecture, building technology, computation, history, theory, arts, product design, conservation, landscape design, environmental design, urbanism, regional planning and town planning. Authors are required to be active doctoral students or to have completed their PhD by dissertation, by publication, or by design recently before submitting their article.

Researchers that undertake research-by-design can submit image-rich essays of their work. Each issue features five articles and a “good practice example” by an established scholar setting the stage for the journal’s theme. It is gratifying to note that in its first eight years of operation eighty now well-established researchers were first published with ArchiDoct.

For more info about ArchiDOCT, click here.