RETHINKING TOURISM IN A COASTAL CITY

The research focus of the PhD is linked to an interdisciplinary research project entitled Rethink tourism in a coastal city – Design for new engagement. It seeks to make a comprehensive, multidisciplinary investigation of coastal tourism in Ringkøbing Skjern (RKSK) hence establish strategies for a renewed view on tourism as an amplifier of site-specific potentials (spatial, cultural, landscape, etc.) and a strategic tool for sustainable development in the coastal region.

This PhD will, referring to above mentioned, focus on transformative site-specific architectural strategies for a renewed tourist landscape in RKSK, and will do this by applying a research through design approach. This focus will be investigated through these research questions:

• What characterizes the urbanized, coastal landscape of RKSK? Focusing on the existing and potential new intersecting arenas between tourism, nature and everyday life.
• How do we, through architectural methods (mapping, designing and prototyping), facilitate an interdisciplinary discussion about local-based qualities and potentials?
• How do architectural methods, from mapping to transformative design intervention affect the formation of new actor networks in the area? How do these actor networks transgress the dichotomy of tourist/local and nature/culture?

The hypothesis is that architecture understood in a broad sense of both physical development strategies, landscape architecture interventions and transformation strategies for existing building structures is a key to providing enhanced attraction of tourists.

Research through Design

The overall idea is to address the research questions through a RtD (Research through Design) approach and hence aim to develop, test and evaluate a number of transformative design strategies for specific sites in the context of RKSK. These physical interventions will serve as living laboratories for testing the research questions. The research will be conducted in close dialogue with a PhD-student from Communication and Cultural Studies at Aarhus University, hence qualify the output from the interventions.

A secondary focus will be on documenting and critically reflect on Design Research (specifically RtD) in an interdisciplinary research project like this. How do we ensure a fruitful exchange of RtD produced knowledge, how do other disciplines incorporate this knowledge and how does Design Research incorporate knowledge from other disciplines? This packaging and dissemination of different knowledge claims could be a novel contribution about the interdisciplinary potentials (strength and weakness) of practice based Design Research. It is the aim that this knowledge should contribute to the ongoing discussion about RtD and its position in research, cf. the Research Charter (Research Committee of the European Association for Architectural Education, 2012) “it creates and exploits transdisciplinary connections.” (Fraser, 2014)

Supervisors

• Professor Tom Nielsen
• Associate Jens Christian Pasgaard