The ATCH Research Centre in the School of Architecture Design and Planning encourages high achieving students to apply to undertake research as part of the following project:
Design Expertise, Design Governance, and the Architecture Profession
This research explores architecture in built environment governance, and more broadly the role of architecture and design in governing: in fostering civic engagement, demonstrating values, and defining a common good. It investigates the relatively recent establishment of design advisor roles in liberal democratic governments, and how this can be understood as a new site of professional production and an index of a changing profession. It explores the interrelationship between regulation, informal design governance processes, and processes that influence cultural change such as education. It draws on theories of governance and governmentality to understand the reliance of design governance processes on negotiated justifications of design quality and worth.
Opportunities for PhD topics within this research project will include both empirically and conceptually focused studies:
The economy of professional expertise in urban development
The role of expertise in aesthetic judgements about the built environment and architecture
Post-professionalism and lay-expertise
Concepts of quality in regulation and review of design
Gender equity in professional participation
If you are interested in making an application in this round please contact Prof John Macarthur (https://about.uq.edu.au/experts/191) or Dr Susan Holden (https://about.uq.edu.au/experts/640) include your CV, briefly describe your interest and motivation, and include a sample of your academic writing in English.
