Three (3) PhD Fellowships, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Denmark (2015)

Applications will be assessed by subject-specific assessment committees, after which they will be assessed together. The three best projects will each be awarded a scholarship.

PhD fellowship applications are invited within the following five themes:

1. The tectonics of re-use: Design for up-cycle
The project asks how the construction industry can become better at re-cycling – where can more resources and values be preserved for the future?
The PhD project is to investigate and develop architectural design methods so that both future and already incorporated construction materials are considered in a long-term perspective and can be re-used with ease in (new) architectural contexts with attention to people and the environment. The project focuses on two key aspects:
Design for Up-cycle: Explore and develop various design methods that can be included in the early design phase, with a view to preserving building components’ ‘value’, including the embedded energy that is used during production, the functional (technical) value of new usage, and the aesthetic, cultural and historical values.
Life / Life cycle: Sustainable solutions and up-cycled materials are to be developed as a part of Danish architecture with a focus on total costs, the environmental consequences of the construction materials’ and the components’ full life, and on cultural and aesthetic values rather than on the predominantly short-term focus on construction economics.

2. Interior Design
Danish Spaces, Perception and User Inclusion
The objective of the project is to study Danish interior design in a historical, materials-related and practice-orientated perspective.
The PhD project examines current knowledge and reflections on Interior Design. While Danish interior design used to set the agenda and was recognised internationally, today, a theoretical and practical rearmament is needed.
The project may focus on the following aspects:
The Danish tradition: During the first half of the 20th century, architects, designers and manufacturers created a valuable story about the Danish tradition. How did this story come about, and how can it be renewed?
Quality and perception in a contemporary product culture: One of the challenges facing modern-day space designers is the industrialisation of construction, which often leads to mundane results as regards composition, surfaces and fittings. How can you act artistically in this reality, and how can you challenge and develop the industrial products?
Inclusion of stakeholders, users and citizens: Inclusion and dialogue are important parts of the task for the companies that now work with interior design.
There is a need for a mapping and analysis of the methods applied, and there is a need for theory and methodology development that can strengthen practice as well as research and teaching.

3. Housing, urbanity and welfare – architecture in an inclusive society
The project forms part of a larger, interdisciplinary research project about the role of architecture and planning in the design and value creation of the welfare society. The objective of the PhD project is to explore spatial expressions and challenges created by changes in Denmark’s population composition, e.g. changes in age composition, household sizes and social and cultural segregation. And to explore challenges that the changes may create for the realisation of inclusive and sustainable scenarios. How can the changes and their spatial expressions be described, and how can targets for inclusion and sustainability, e.g. for a growing generation of elderly citizens, be promoted through newbuild development and transformation in municipalities, city centres, suburbs and peripheral areas?

4. Historical construction technique and materials science
The PhD project is to contribute to the coordination of existing knowledge and the development of new knowledge about historical construction technique and materials science in order to qualify the development of a sustainable building culture.
On an analytical basis, the project is to shed light on and illustrate how experience with and examples from historical architecture can inform the transformation of Danish building culture, both in connection with restoration and renovation and in connection with the transformation of existing buildings as well as newbuild.
Today, many old buildings are demolished or energy-optimised following the methods developed by the construction sector’s newbuild. This destroys building cultural values, and from a sustainability view, this is problematic. By means of existing knowledge and the development of models and examples, the project is to provide a greater understanding of historically founded solutions in relation to materials, methods and structures.

5. History in architecture
The PhD project is to investigate architects’ use of history in a historical and/or modern architectural practice.
Traditionally, the historical in architecture has been seen in relation to certain architecture-historical currents or from a purely building-historical perspective. By contrast, only limited research has been conducted that examines the historical dimension in architecture as a study object in its own right across historical epochs, discussing in concrete terms architects’ use of history in the present, where it plays an increasing role, e.g. within cultural heritage preservation or in a prospering ‘modern historicism’ such as New Urbanism.
The PhD project may focus on the use of history from several different angles, e.g. a didactic, a historiographical or a poetics-orientated angle.
Employment terms

Enrolment will take place with a view to acquiring the PhD degree and entails salaried employment as a PhD fellow for three years as per the agreement between the Danish Ministry of Finance and The Danish Confederation of Professional Associations, AC, minutes about PhD fellowships (Appendix 5).
The salary consists of a seniority-based basic salary and a non-pensionable supplement.

Further details:
http://academicpositions.eu