Course summary

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, the humanities, and social sciences to open 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, and the Manchester Urban Institute, allows us to benefit from synergies with Planning, Property and Environmental Management, Geography, and several other disciplines. Through these connections, 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.

• the politics of construction;

• architecture and climate transformations;

• urban infrastructure and global transformations;

• political economy of architecture and politics of design;

• art, architecture and architectural curating;

• architectural collections, archives and exhibitions;

• anthropology of design and construction practices;

• technologies, media and innovations in architecture: epistemological and political implications;

• architecture's globalization and material politics of infrastructure;

• digital theory and history of architecture;

• political economy of architecture.