Towards human-oriented design, architecture and urbanism: shifts in education and practice.

Redacted versionThe scope of this piece of work is to reflect upon a series of past and recent publications as well as those in progress referring to innovations in architectural education which has already led and/or might lead to major shifts in future practices. This is an opportunity for the author to reflect on concepts and ideas for the future of architecture which is currently undergoing innovative developments by embracing new theories and enduring professional formation according to contemporary trends. This reflective work has been based on publication of research, including ongoing editorial work related to this topic. The author’s ideas and philosophy on human-oriented design and fractal patterns of social life has embraced dynamics of urban developments in modern and future cities. She has succeeded in considering, uniquely interpreting and further developing ideas and theories of established authors, such as Christopher Alexander’s concepts on patterns and principles of design and Nikos Salingaros’ thermodynamic models of the built environment. The author was inspired by teachers and renowned scholars in history, philosophy and practices of architecture; her own teachers’ experiences and their teaching had offered a singular momentum in her personal career path. This long process started when her teachers succeeded in placing urbanism and architecture side by side inside the Faculty of Architecture of Florence back in the 1970s. Hence the author reflects not only on recent publications, but also on others that have been published in the last decade or so. In this report it is evident that materials produced during these years have been essential and invaluable for her later endeavours in learning, teaching and the training of designers and architects in Great Britain and beyond.Fees: 50% School of Engineering and Technology& 50% Self-funde

A critical evaluation of competitive intelligence and insight management practice.

This thesis forms part of a PhD by Publication based on the research and scholarly work of Sheila Wright. It explores her contribution to the field of Competitive Intelligence & Insight Management (CI&IM) made through ten articles published between 2002 and 2010. The research projects that involved the collection of primary data were carried out within a qualitative research methodology using a semi-structured interview or case study method and typically adopting a pragmatic paradigm. Through this work, it has been possible to present a best-practice framework for CI&IM. Similarly, it has been possible to develop an operational framework for CI&IM, which identifies the inter-connectivity of the CI&IM tasks as well as the organisational influencing factors which can aid or hinder successful implementation. As well as engaging in a critical evaluation of current CI&IM practice the thesis indicates how the articles offer solutions which can aid the delivery of improved performance to practitioners as well as academics who teach and research the subject. The thesis also identifies the place of CI&IM in the business discipline and draws attention to the cross-boundary, inter-disciplinary nature of its reach. The development of bibliometric software and citation identification programmes has enabled the inclusion of a citation analysis for each article which also identifies the context within which that citation was made. This is presented as supporting evidence for the contribution to knowledge and value of the body of work. Through this mechanism it has also been possible, not only to identify the frequency with which the articles have been cited, but more importantly, the impact and contribution this has had on scholars who have subsequently used the output and frameworks as a basis for their own research.This is a PhD by Publication. Due to copyright restrictions, copies of the articles have been omitted in this version of the thesis. Full bibliographic details including DOI's and URL's for the articles can be found in Appendix 2

Demarcating dramaturgy : mapping theory onto practice

'Dramaturgy' and the 'dramaturg' have entered the discourse of English theatre practitioners over the past two decades. For individuals working within subsidized building-based producing theatres, understandings and applications of dramaturgical practice have been significantly shaped by the structures and objectives of literary management - a role, established within the industry since the 1990s, dedicated to the development of new plays and playwrights. In Germany, the dramaturgical profession dates back to the latter half of the eighteenth century and, since the twentieth century, has held a remit inclined more towards the programming and production of theatre works than the developing and commissioning of new theatre writing. In Germany and across mainland Europe, dramaturgs hold a recognized position at the heart of producing structures; in England, the role and status of the dramaturg are less defined. Despite a decade or so of concerted explanation and exploration, the concept of dramaturgy continues to be met with indifference, principally associated with practices of literary management which, this thesis shall argue, risk eliding the critical and creative scope of dramaturgy as it is practised on the continent. Through an assessment of the cultural, philosophical and economic contexts which inform processes of theatre-making, this thesis seeks to articulate and analyse these contrasting practices of dramaturgy. Chapters One and Two focus upon contemporary definitions of dramaturgy in England, addressing the role of the dramaturg within new play development and analysing the impact that distinctions between 'script-led' and 'non-script-led' approaches to theatre have had upon the reception of dramaturgical practice. Chapters Three and Four then compare those aspects of German and English theatre practice which I believe critically determine the agency of a dramaturg within production processes. These aspects may be summarized respectively as, on a microlevel, the relationship between text and performance and, on a macro-level, the relationship between theatre and society. This thesis regards dramaturgy as a creative practice defined in relation to a shared set of attitudes towards the production and reception of theatre, and argues that a specifically dramaturgical contribution to theatremaking rests in this analysis of the dynamic between performance and spectator

Changing Communities on Film: an investigation into representations of community between 1910 and 1954 in collections in the Yorkshire Film Archive

This thesis analyses representations of community in amateur and professional films from selected collections from the Yorkshire Film Archive between 1910 and 1954; a time of significant social and economic change in the region. Analysis of what appears on screen is undertaken by employing modes of textual analysis and historical and critical theories, including the Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, and Imagined and Constructed ideas of community on a regional and national level. The thesis first considers definitions of community and problems inherent in providing a simple and single definition. Frameworks employed to develop the analysis of film footage include methodological tools based upon prior research of archival footage and thematic, textual, and historic analysis to examine what is within the foreground and the underlying representations within the footage. Each chapter then examines the changing representations of people and the environment. However, in addition to that which exists in front of the camera the study seeks to engage with those behind the camera as being equally significant. This research uses the categorisations of amateur, professional and propaganda footage to explore and interpret the film collections. However, the boundaries for these categorisations shift over time and this fluidity in definitions is considered as part of the analysis of change over time. The linear analysis of specific collections allows for comparison and contrast between key facets of community which include class, gender, and ethnicity. The analysis argues that there is no single definition of community but that communities in Yorkshire and the Northeast change between 1910-1954. The affordability and familiarity of filmmaking grew between World War One and the Post-War period and changed people’s knowledge and exposure to filmmaking, reflecting dramatic economic and social changes. These alterations are represented on film, as the increase in filmmaking reveals changes to communities in public and private spheres

A Fourth Way : the role of cultural heritage in embedding place-driven innovation

Set against an already powerful context of political instability and global economic uncertainty, and further intensified by the unprecedented challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, the paradigm of ‘place’ which, prior to the pandemic, had seen a rapid incorporation into all levels of policy making and practice, has prevailed through an intense period of instability, scrutiny and challenge. In the context of EU policy, the notion of ‘place’ has been particularly prevalent in driving the development of 'Smart Specialisation' strategies (S3), a programme based primarily on identification and assertion of unique regional assets as drivers of innovation and regional competitiveness. Interpretation, development and evaluation of place in the context of S3 has been previously dominated by two conceptually static definitions: a physical understanding of place as a defined, geographic territory and a socio-economic understanding of place as a self-contained economic and social system. Comparative assessment of regional competitiveness, reflecting the norms of economic practice, has tended to rely on productivity measures such as GDP. In the wake of the pandemic and a growing recognition of the limitations of competitive practice (as opposed to collaborative approaches), and a widespread acknowledgement of the associated limitations of productivity and GDP as performance measures, this thesis introduces cultural heritage as a third and critical criterion in realising a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of place. Through pragmatic application of mixed methods, the research seeks to interrogate the inter-relationship between place and innovation, exploring the place/innovation nexus through a cultural heritage lens. Further exploration of place as a driver for sustainability and resilience catalyses a necessary redefinition of economic performance and, by extension, of what is meant by economic success. Integrating factors of space and time, and incorporating characteristics of light and sound, the research proposes a new and dynamic conceptual model for innovation economies founded on the notion of 'place-driven' development and collaborative action toward a shared mission of sustainability, conceiving of a new ‘four-dimensional’ economic paradigm and proposing a new assessment framework within which the fourth space is ‘unlocked’ by the foregrounding of cultural heritage in the place-driven paradigm, and through which a whole series of previously accepted tripartite models can be elevated; presented collectively as ‘A Fourth Way’

Human behaviour modelling in complex socio-technical systems : an agent based approach

For many years we have been striving to understand human behaviour and our interactions with our socio-technological environment. By advancing our knowledge in this area, we have helped the design of new or improved work processes and technologies. Historically, much of the work in analysing social interactions has been conducted within the social sciences. However, computer simulation has brought an extra tool in trying to understand and model human behaviours. Using an agent based approach this presentation describes my work in constructing computational models of human behaviour for informing design through simulation. With examples from projects in two main application areas of crisis and emergency management, and energy management I describe how my work addresses some main issues in agent based social simulation. The first concerns the process by which we develop these models. The second lies in the nature of socio-technical systems. Human societies are a perfect example of a complex system exhibiting characteristics of self-organisation, adaptability and showing emergent phenomena such as cooperation and robustness. I describe how complex systems theory may be applied to improve our understanding of socio-technical systems, and how our micro level interactions lead to emergent mutual awareness for problem-solving. From agent based simulation systems I show how context awareness may be modelled. Looking forward to the future, I discuss how the increasing prevalence of artificial agents in our society will cause us to re-examine the new types of interactions and cooperative behaviours that will emerge.Depuis de nombreuses années, nous nous sommes efforcés de comprendre le comportement humain et nos interactions avec l'environnement sociotechnique. Grâce à l'avancée de nos connaissances dans ce domaine, nous avons contribué à la conception de technologies et de processus de travail nouveaux ou améliorés. Historiquement, une part importante du travail d'analyse des interactions sociales fut entreprise au sein des sciences sociales. Cependant, la simulation informatique a apporté un nouvel outil pour tenter de comprendre et de modéliser les comportements humains. En utilisant une approche à base d'agents, cette présentation décrit mon travail sur la construction de modèles informatiques du comportement humain pour guider la conception par la simulation. A l'aide d'exemples issus de projets des deux domaines d'application que sont la gestion des crises et de l'urgence et la gestion de l'énergie, je décris comment mon travail aborde certains problèmes centraux à la simulation sociale à base d'agents. Le premier concerne le processus par lequel nous développons ces modèles. Le second problème provient de la nature des systèmes sociotechniques. Les sociétés humaines constituent un exemple parfait de système complexe possédant des caractéristiques d'auto-organisation et d'adaptabilité, et affichant des phénomènes émergents tels que la coopération et la robustesse. Je décris comment la théorie des systèmes complexes peut être appliquée pour améliorer notre compréhension des systèmes sociotechniques, et comment nos interactions au niveau microscopique mènent à l'émergence d'une conscience mutuelle pour la résolution de problèmes. A partir de systèmes de simulation à base d'agents, je montre comment la conscience du contexte peut être modélisée. En terme de perspectives, j'expliquerai comment la hausse de la prévalence des agents artificiels dans notre société nous forcera à considérer de nouveaux types d'interactions et de comportements coopératifs