Design for New Engagements: Methods for Research through Design in Urban Transformation

In this PhD seminar, we will explore methods for research through design (RtD) in urban transformation
processes with a particular focus on collaborative/participatory design and strategic planning and a methodological focus on action research and Actor Network Theory (ANT).

RtD has a lot to offer to sustainable urban transformation processes. Design interventions have the capacity to explore and test new productive relationships among existing spaces and materialities and the people who use them. In this way, they can stimulate what Mathias Meldgaard calls “new engagements” among humans and non-human actors in a given place.

Mathias Meldgaard will present the ANT-based research methodology developed in his dissertation Negotiating the Coastal City – design interventions as a catalyst for new relations between tourism and places in Hvide Sande (2021) and share learnings from his work. The participants will have the opportunity to present and discuss their own PhD research with a focus on methodological questions.

With the participants, we will use the learnings from and discussions of this dissertation with the overarching goal to investigate and discuss how design can be used to strengthen collaboration processes in the transformation of complex urban-rural landscapes, specifically in relation to co-design and the engagement of different actors and how this can be disseminated in a PhD project. This implies inquiries into how site-spe­cific design interventions can be used to map and describe diverse actors and the dynamic relationships that constitute the contemporary city with the goal to con­tribute to both a better and broader understanding of urban transformation processes and qualifying strategic design measures within urban development.

• Location: PhD School, Aarhus School of Architecture, Exners Plads 7, 8000 Aarhus C.
• Target group: The course is open for PhD candidates within architecture, landscape
  architecture, urbanism, design and related fields.
• Language: English.
• Number of participants: The number of participants to present their own
  research is, however, limited to 12. Priority is given to PhD candidates, but
  other researchers can be admitted if places are available.
• Course instructors: Anne Tietjen, Catharina Dyrssen, Stefan Darlan
  Boris, Mathias Meldgaard and Tom Nielsen.
• ECTS credits: 4

Registration deadline and procedure: Deadline October 5^th 2021. Sign up
by sending an abstract of 1-2 pages (A4) describing the methodological aspects
of your research to PhD coordinator Mia Mimi Flodager, mmf@aarch.dk. Participants are
selected on the basis of the abstracts.

 A reading list will be distributed prior to the start of the course.

During the course, the participants are expected to present these aspects
in a form that facilitates discussion.

The course instructors prepare for the course by reading the abstracts.