Doctoral Research Fellowships at AHO

Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO) offers 11 doctoralresearch fellowships, commencing September 2006. The applicationdeadline is 1stMarch 2006. The fellowships have a duration of 4 years, and include 25% teaching duty at AHO. The yearly salary amounts to NOK 292.000.Candidates with external funding are welcome to apply.

Eligible applicants must have a Master degree in architecture,engineering, landscape design, industrial design or interaction design,or have other relevant education at a corresponding level.

Application form
http://www.aho.no/Om_aho/Hovedadministrasjon/ledige_stillinger/Soknadsskjema_phd2006.doc

Research topics
AHO's institutes have defined research topics which are of particularinterest to the school, and encourage applications within these topics.The topics are:

Norwegian architectural history (Institute of Form, Theory andHistory)Institute of Form, Theory and History (FTH) is developing Norwegianarchitectural history as one of its key areas of research, emphasisingthe modern period (1800 - present). The post war years in particularrepresent a little studied period in Norwegian architectural history.We are interested in a recontextualised history which situatesarchitecture within a broad cultural and intellectual context.Applicants are therefore encouraged to widen the traditionalstyle-based perspective, and to emphasise architecture as a culturalproduct. FTH aims for an integration of theoretical and empiricalstudies, and encourages applicants to place Norwegian architecturaldiscourse and practice in an international context.
Contact: Mari Hvattum

Norwegian urban planning history (Institute of Urbanism)
Institute of urbanism aims to strengthen its research in the history ofurban planning, with a main focus on Norwegian developments seen in aninternational context. There is a lack of comprehensive andtheoretically updated surveys of modern Norwegian planning history.There are both important historical periods and individual plannersthat deserve more research attention. As such, Norwegian urban planninghistory is a thematic field that gives new possibilities for empiricaland theoretical exploration.Norwegian urban planning history has traditionally focused on thedevelopment of modernist urban planning in the period 1930-1960. Thereare few historical analyses of the period when the modern planningdiscipline was established (from the end of the 19th Century to the1920's), and much the same goes for the development from around 1970and onwards. The institute will give priority to research on both theseperiods, with a particular emphasis on recent developments. New andcritical readings of the hegemonic period for modernist urban planningwill be encouraged. The institute endeavours to develop a research teamin urban planning history that combines both discipline specific andcross-disciplinary approaches, with the aim of developing both newtheoretical positions and exploring new historical methods. Researchthat focuses on social and cultural frameworks and effects of urbanplanning practices will be encouraged. The interrelationship betweenthe production of physical environments and socio-cultural developmentswill also be emphasized. A project labelled "The Norwegian urbanplanning history" is about to be established.
Contact: Jonny Aspen, Karl Otto Ellefsen

Modern architectural theory / design theory (Institute of Form, Theory and History)
Institute of Form, Theory and History (FTH), together with Institute ofIndustrial Design (ID), places great emphasise on architectural- anddesign theory in teaching as well as research. We wish to encourage aninternationally oriented PhD project that approaches contemporarytheory in a critical and interpretative manner. We are interested inexploring the connection between design activity and the formation oftheoretical reflection, and wish to see modern thinking on architectureand design in a wide intellectual and historical perspective. Weparticularly encourage projects that explore theoretical communalitiesbetween architecture and industrial design.
Contact: Mari Hvattum

Urban Transformation (Institute of Urbanism)
How do we analyse forces working on the physical form and life of thecity, and how can we influence these?Cities, particularly the larger cities, are undergoing transformationof a magnitude which can only be compared to the industrialization inthe 18th and 19th century. The driving forces are globalization ofeconomy and culture, the digitalization of technology and thederegulation of politics. The results are new economic and productiveframeworks for urban life, new urban scales and connections as well aschanges in the physical form of the city.This urban transformation has for the last 10 years been the centraltheme for research and development activities as well as teaching atthe institute of Urbanism. It is a broad field, and can be approachedfrom a variety of academic fields and research traditions.Thematically, the research and development activities at the institutehave ranged from studies of processes and development of methods forurban analysis, to urban theory and architectural theory. The projectsshould aim at theoretical and practical investigations of therelationship between spatial/physical aspects of urban transformationand questions of economy, identity, culture and factors of socialtransformation.
Contacts: Peter Hemmersam, Jonny Aspen

New strategies for the design and production of the environmentThis broad area encompasses reflections on current mechanisms guidingthe generation and shaping of the man made environment (space,building, urban space, cities, landscape etc.). More specifically,studies in this area seek to address changes both in processes andoutcomes arising from new social practices and technologicaldevelopments. The generation of new strategies for design andproduction of the built environment is seen as one of the mostimportant issues in AHO's teaching and research, and also closelylinked to the practices of related design professions. The focus ofresearch in this field is innovation and development of architecturaland design practice.

1. Strategies for the formation of urban form (Institute of Urbanism)
The theme invites reflection on approaches and strategies in theformation of urban form on regional, urban or individual project scale.Development of strategies for design and production of physicalenvironments is an important part of the research and developmentactivities as well as teaching at the Institute of Urbanism, and it isessential to the disciplines of urbanism, architecture and landscapearchitecture.

In recent decades, much of the initiative in the development of urbanform has shifted from public authorities to private propertydevelopment. This raises a number of central issues concerning urbanproject development processes, including such tings as:

• The challenge posed by the limited capacity in planning forhandling changes in circumstances over time and the uncertainty that isinherent in urban development,
• The lack of transparency in planning processes.
• Challenges connected to the representation of projects
• Challenges connected to architectural quality and quality of construction
• The challenge posed by the fact that urban projects tend to beinward looking, failing to relate to unstable and unpredictable urbancontexts.

The project should investigate new strategies for the production ofurban form and the urban environment. It should focus on therelationship between the current production of build form, the practiseof Norwegian and international designers involved in urban projects,and the relevant theoretical literature. Innovation and the developmentof new design practices should be emphasized.
Contact: Peter Hemmersam

2. Practice Related Knowledge (Institute of Architecture, Institute of Architectural and Design Technology)
The process of globalisation is having a marked impact on the practiceof architecture. The monopolisation of initiatives and resources in aclimate of increased competition is promoting structural changes in allof the building industry.

Within the architectural profession this has lead to new types ofcommissions, new roles for the architect, a tendency towards increasedspecialisation, the confrontation with new economic processes,increased demands for quality control, and stress on the production ofsustainable developments.

The challenge for applicants to the PhD grant in the area ofPractice Related Knowledge is to propose a project whose outcomecontributes to the understanding of the changes to the design andbuilding processes described above. Applicants are encouraged to submita diversity of themes and approaches within this area. However, theproposed study should be focused on current practice, on the attainmentof architectural quality, and on the elucidation of those criticalfactors which contribute to this process.
Contact: Margrethe Dobloug, Christian Hermansen

Interaction design (Institute of Industrial Design)
Interaction Design is one of IDE's key research areas and is dividedinto the following three sections: ‘Digital lives', ‘tools and methods'and ‘strategic design'. IDE encourages project applications in each ofthese areas to further develop the projects already underway.

The area of ‘Digital lives' is a broad area, and we are looking forprojects that can develop scenario-based futures within the area ofdigital products and services, projects investigating social computing,contextual solutions, design of public services, future TV andemotional computing. Project approaches that include embodiedinteraction are desirable.

Within the area of 'Tools and Methods' we are looking for proposalsthat focus upon the designers role in innovation processes, designingconceptual development tools, the designer as facilitator, emotionaldesign and user-centred design methods and service design.

The ‘Strategic Design' initiative would like to see projectsrelated to the role of design in strategic decision-making in ICTcompanies, the relation between design maturity and strategic designthinking in organisations, the designer as facilitator of strategyprocesses, service design and projects mapping the experience economyto interaction design skills.
Contact: Simon Clatworthy

Architectural Conservation (Institute of Form, Theory and History)
Based on FTH's recent initiatives in the area of architecturalconservation, we wish to establish a PhD project dealing with Norwegianarchitectural conservation in a historical, theoretical, and practicalperspective. We are particularly interested in the following issues:
a) Explorations of the ideological and theoretical presuppositions thatgoverned Norwegian conservation in the 20th century. This involvesquestions concerning value and selection: what were the criteria forthe listing of buildings in the different periods, and how were thebuildings selected? By exploring the ideological framework behind 20thcentury conservation practice, one may establish a better understandingof Norwegian architectural heritage, as it is maintained and used bypublic and private interests.

b) Discussions of the processes, methods and agents actingwithin contemporary Norwegian conservation, submitting currentconservation practice to a critical academic scrutiny. During the 20thcentury, many important conservation programs have been undertaken.These programs are, however, relatively little studied with regards totheir underlying ideological position, their processes, and theirresults. One important issue is for instance the question of howdifferent agents (users, political government, conservationprofessionals etc.) relate to each other in a conservation process, andhow such processes work.

Projects should be based on a Norwegian empirical material, butshould be situated within an updated international theoreticaldiscourse.
Contact: Mari Hvattum

Augmented Reality (Institute of Architecture)
Institute of Architecture is establishing a research project onAugmented Reality.The aim of this project is to elucidate and make a significantcontribution to the way in which civil society is able to participatein the process of shaping our urban environment and thus make acontribution to the transparency and quality of local governance.

The current ways in which design proposals are presented to thepublic, projections, perspectives, models, 3D digital models, etc.embody both the need for significant levels of abstraction andinterpretation, and are thus both difficult to understand and subjectto high levels of manipulation by those with greater design knowledge.Conventional means of visualization often mislead those not trained inthese media, whose expectations, built up as a result of theinterpretation of a representation, often far exceed the perceivedqualities of the real project.

Augmented Reality (AR) is a representation technique in whichunmediated reality is combined with digital data. In our case we areinterested in augmented reality's potential to represent urbanproposals in their unmediated context. This technique promises tosignificantly reduce the gap in perception of proposed urbaninterventions between professionals and the lay public.In order to findout how this new technology might effect citizen participation in thevisualization of their future urban environment, we intend to addresstwo issues: Where do the problems lie in conventional simulation andrepresentation? And on the basis of what has been learned from thestudy of conventional methods of visualization: how should AR bedeveloped into an appropriate tool for the visualization of design?Familiarity with 3D-modelling and software programming to a level whichwould allow the candidate to manipulate and update existing softwarewould be an advantage.
Contact: Christian Hermansen, Søren Sørensen

About the application
The application must be written on a standardized form for PhDapplications. Enclosed must be a project description of up to 10 pages,covering the following points:
- Topic and research question
- academic relevance
- method(s) and theoretical approaches
- empirical material / sources
- general account of the research field (research status, national and international literature in the field)
- the applicant's academic qualifications and networks

The project description should be written in such a way that it shows your mastery of standard academic conventions.

The application material can be written in Norwegian or English. Inaddition to application form and project description, the applicationmust contain CV, certified copies of examination certificates,references, as well as a list of enclosures. All application materialmust be delivered in 3 copies. The application must be marked with"Doctoral Research Fellowship 2006" and sent to Oslo School ofArchitecture and Design, P.O. Box 6768 St. Olavs plass, N-0130 Oslo,Norway.

Who to contact
The designated research topics haveassigned contact names at AHO's five institutes. These contacts will beable to provide you with more information and advice you on how todevelop your application. You may also contact the director of thedoctoral programme, professor Halina Dunin-Woyseth. For practicalquestions regarding applications and procedures contact adviser IngunnGjørva in the Research Administration.

Application form
http://www.aho.no/Om_aho/Hovedadministrasjon/ledige_stillinger/Soknadsskjema_phd2006.doc

Contact persons /potential supervisors

Reference:
http://www.aho.no/