‘Scripting’ in architecture is usually associated with computer-based design programming. However, this narrow usage belies a rich vein of concepts intrinsic to architecture and authorship. This thesis frames scripting as a critical mode of computation, performance, and design process. It does this through seven projects that explore relationships between technology, society, and the philosophical absurd. Works include films, performances, programmes and installations produced independently and collaboratively with experts from scientific and artistic fields. This thesis asks: how might an expanded definition of ‘scripting’ act as a critical methodology for performative architectural design?; how can this methodology mediate between, and comment on, technology and society?; and what is the relationship between scripting, authorship and agency? Computational scripting has been explored in depth by a number of practitioners and theorists; performative scripting has been examined within the context of theatre and artistic practice; this study adopts an expansive definition of scripting that embraces each of these approaches whilst simultaneously proposing scripting as a critical design methodology. Furthermore, the thesis introduces the philosophical ‘absurd’ as a framework for critiquing emergent technologies and their impact on society. In chapter 1, two projects (Ant Ballet, Godot Machine) are discussed as modes of diagramming absurd theatrical scripts. The ‘framing’ of these projects provides direction for further work within the thesis. Chapter 2 introduces two dance pieces (Nybble, Scriptych) which represent scripted performances and a novel computer-scripted feedback mechanism. Both are diagrammatic modes of presenting contemporary computing mechanisms. Chapter 3 then discusses two experimental computationally-scripted absurd films exploring the practices and impact of contemporary technology companies (86400, 24fps Psycho). Chapter 3 introduces a film (Network / Intersect) created through a novel design process imposing strict rules on the creation of work. It concludes by naming this practice ‘reflexive scripted design’, proposing it as the thesis’ main original contribution to knowledge.

The overlapped realities of built architecture and human action raise questions that concern the separation of the built from the lived, experience from representation, the imaginary from the everyday. In this thesis, considering movement in time as the agent of interpreting place is a proposition for a performative understanding of architecture that aims at expanding its feld of practice by blurring the boundaries between objectsubject and space-time. Through the twentieth century, movement has been explored in urban and land-art practices, yet the role it can play in rethinking building has been understated. When movement has been the focus of architectural design, such as in the Beaux-Arts marche and Le Corbusier’s architectural promenade, it has been limited to expressing the aspirations of the architect. My thesis expands existing understandings of the role of movement in architecture through the study of one building: Casa Malaparte by the writer Curzio Malaparte, mistakenly attributed to architect Adalberto Libera. Through on-site and archival research, I expand the literature on the house’s authorship and discuss Malaparte’s architectural practice as an intentional blurring of living and building. Malaparte considered his house the best portrait of himself and called it ‘House Like Me’. I discuss the house as a building portrait that embraces movement beyond modernism’s insistence on functionality and effciency. I argue that the house is a ‘stage of life’, creating ‘living pictures’ of its inhabitant. My study is a synthesis of textual and design research. I introduce the concept of the architect-performer, an active subject attuned to movement, who interweaves knowledge acquired from direct place experiences with insight from historical, theoretical and design research. Working between analysis and design, I use the moving image as a performative tool to explore a flmic documentation that is able to render intimate and temporal conditions of place that otherwise remain unspoken.

This thesis contributes to histories and theories of digital architecture of the past two decades, as it questions the narratives of its novelty. The main argument this thesis puts forward is that a plethora of methodologies, displacing the centrality of the architect from the architectural design process, has folded into the discipline in the process of its rewriting along digital protocols. These steer architecture onto a post-human path. However, while the redefinition of the practice unfolds, it does so epistemically only without redefining the new subject of architecture emerging from these processes, which therefore remains anchored to humanist-modern definitions. This unaccounted-for position, I argue, prevents novelty from emerging. Simultaneously, the thesis unfolds a creative approach – while drawing on nomadic, critical theory concepts, there surfaces an alternative genealogy already underpinning digital methodologies that enable a reconceptualization of novelty framed with difference to be articulated through nomadic digital embodiment. Regarding the first claim, I turn to the narratives as well as to the mechanisms of digital discourse emerging in two modes of production – mathematical and biological – in exploration of the ways perceptions of novelty are articulated: a) through close readings of its narratives as they consolidate into digital architectural theory (Carpo 2011; Lynn 2003, 2012; Terzidis 2006; Migayrou 2004, 2009); b) through an analysis of the two digital methodologies that support these narratives – parametric architecture and biodigital architecture. In parallel, this thesis draws on twentieth-century critical theory and twenty-firstcentury nomadic feminist theory to rethink two thematic topics: difference and subjectivity. Specifically, these are Gilles Deleuze’s non-essentialist, nonrepresentational philosophy of difference (1968, 1980, 1988) and Rosi Braidotti’s nomadic feminist reconceptualization of post-human, nonunitary subjectivity (2006, 2011, 2015). Nomadic feminist theory also informs my methodology. I draw on Rosi Braidotti’s cartographing and transposing (2006, 2011) because they engender a non-dualist approach to research itself that is dynamic and affirmative, insisting on grounding techniques – grounding in subject positions that are nevertheless post-human and nonunitary. This leads to a redefinition of novel digital practices with ethical ones.

Over the course of 30 years ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland led to the rupturing of physical sites from people’s everyday environment. In a post ‘Good Friday/Belfast Agreement’ era, this thesis considers the construction of common ground and the space of encounter as an instrument in peacemaking. I investigate how both the physical and the imagined landscape work together to form what I call peace-process infrastructure: landscapes that bolster a peaceprocess by being re-appropriated for civilian purposes and knit back into their surroundings. Under the practice strand of this study, I use movement as a tactic by choosing a series of traverses that were not possible to undertake as a civilian during the conflict: Divis Mountain next to Belfast City which changed hands from military zone to nature reserve; the now navigable Shannon-Erne Waterway; and the borderline hills between Ireland/European Union and Northern Ireland/United Kingdom where the watchtowers once stood. The garnered film footage works as testimony to a fragile peace-process, which in turn becomes an active archive that generates text. Specific tools that were used at each site to overcome topographical distance — limelight, lock and lens — are deployed once more to make what is considered remote and out of touch, close and tangible. At its heart, this project builds a multi-tiered rendering of particular landscapes — drawing on Hannah Arendt, Edmund Burke, amongst other political, landscape and feminism theorists — but it is motivated by the larger desire to contribute to a worldwide discussion about peace-process situations from a spatial perspective. People’s reactions to the constructed encounter in the world around them are a direct consequence to the architectural systems that command our surroundings. Landscapes hold the potential to deconstruct toxic territorial organisation leading to creative production. Revolutions are not just a protest but a creative process — a tool for remaking states and societies. In world terms the cultural Irish revolution preceded the political revolution galvanising world and Irish opinion towards independence for Ireland in 1916. About one hundred years later, this work creates a cultural milieu about the peace process that gathers strength for its advancement.

Millions regularly dive into the virtual worlds of videogames, exploring fictional spaces through controllers and screens. They occupy worlds structured by both rules and fiction, ‘half-real’ according to games theorist Jesper Juul. This thesis draws from Juul’s assertion to explore the reciprocal relationship between architecture and videogame worlds. By framing games as a meeting point between both computational and visual arts culture, which I term ‘ironic computation,’ I establish a methodology for examining games that draws from previous studies into the effects of pop culture on architecture. The thesis explores game spaces in three ways, firstly by using traditional architectural tools of analysis such as drawings, models, cartographic studies and critical writing to elucidate their logics by ‘distancing’myself from the videogame form. This culminates in ‘Learning from Los Santos’ a chapter studying Los Santos, the city backdrop to Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar, 2013) thorugh a variety of techniques. In the second stage of the thesis I start to make videogames myself, exploring how their aesthetic form communicates architecture differently from other media I use as a designer. I focus on the London Developers Toolkit, my satirical architectural game based around London’s housing crisis, examining how the game is designed to communicate architectural messages to users playing it. The final stage of the thesis applies game principles into design projects for architecture with real sites and programmes. Tokyo IRTBBC is an urban design project for an emergency ‘back up’ Tokyo that draws from the logics of Japanese arcade ‘medal game’ cabinets. Here I question how the interplay between computation and symbolism that is key to the videogame form might integrate with smart technologies to create a playful public realm. Following these design projects I conclude that videogame technologies will not only offer new representational tools for architects, but also constitute new ways of realising architecture that enmesh rules and representation into virtual, inhabitable environments.

This thesis shifts existing scholarship on the lectures of the architect John Soane (1753-1837) from previous examination of them in architectural history as a set of written texts illustrated by drawings, towards a new understanding of how such lectures operated as events with associated textual documents, and as part of a nineteenth-century performance practice of architecture. Considering Soane’s lectures as a form of performance practice, and drawing on performance studies as a methodology for the practice of history, this thesis argues for greater acknowledgement of the active role of the drawings in the lectures than has previously been recognised, as well as a more nuanced appreciation of the way that words and drawings were used together by the Soane office to practise and perform architectural knowledge in various ways. Through analysis of new primary archival evidence related to Soane’s lectures at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (R.I.) – evidence and lectures not yet investigated academically – I explore this lecturing practice in relation to the particularities of the oral culture of the period and within the R.I.’s existing strong ‘arts and sciences’ culture of performance that was rooted in a longer tradition of scientific demonstration. With reference to existing work in the field, I make the case for architectural history as a practice that is performative. Overall the performative structure of the thesis which combines ‘reading’ and ‘drawing’ with ‘in’, ‘out’, and ‘again’ becomes a way to practise, perform and play with the history, to compare different actions of reading evidence (directly, contextually and repeatedly/performatively), and to facilitate and demonstrate further reflection on architectural historiographical processes.

The study of the interior, or the practice of Interior Design,1 is often described as a new discipline2 and in its present form this is true, even the use of the word interior to describe the inside of a building only coming into common parlance at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The idea of interiors as a profession developed in the late nineteenth century and it was as recently as the 1970s that it was felt necessary to provide a degree style of education. Because of its apparent youth Interior Design has been seen as part of the discipline of architecture and as such has operated literally and conceptually ‘within’ architecture, borrowing its means of practice, ways of thinking and methods of representation. The purpose of this thesis is two fold: Firstly to question the validity of this position suggesting the practice of interiors is neither young, nor is it an inevitable result of architectural production. Rather it should be understood as a discipline in its own right o"ering an alternative knowledge base to that of its host. Secondly the thesis attempts to describe what that knowledge base might be. The title Drawing Out the Interior refers to discussion of the Italian word ‘disegno’ meaning drawing but also drawing out of an idea.3 Using drawing as a method of investigation, as an analytical and critical tool, I have literally ‘drawn out’ three case study interiors. These interiors are: The Censors’ Room at the Royal College of Physicians, St Andrews Place, NW1, previously of Pall Mall East, SW1 and Warwick Lane, EC4. / Sigmund Freud’s Consulting Room and Study, both in Berggasse 19, Vienna IX and 20 Mares!eld Gardens, NW3. / and The Old Cinema at 307 Regent Street, W1B.

This thesis is concerned with uncertainty and its role in the use and design of informal space. This is an important topic because the social theories and narratives that have tended to guide the organisation and design of space are being problemitised by post-modern concepts of multi-positionality as well as interactive technologies. This leads to uncertainty. Uncertainty creates difficulties for designers because it highlights conflicting motivations, intentions, values, aims and criteria for success. Informal spaces and situations are an important aspect of communal life because they bring together people who are unknown to each other and this awareness of, and potential for encounter with, others is understood as a condition of a resilient and adaptive communal life. The intention of this thesis is to propose ways in which the conceptual and methodological difficulties in designing for uncertainty might be approached. Understanding the role that uncertainty plays in forming practices of co-presence and co-creation in informal spaces and situations is one aspect of this research. The convergence of spatial, social and technological elements suggests that an interdisciplinary approach is required to achieve this. In this thesis social and spatial practices are considered side-by-side. A new term, therefore, was required to encompass these research sites. The term chosen is in-between-ness. This draws on ideas of in-between-ness from anthropology. Inbetween spaces were chosen as the focus of the studies because these spaces are loosely defined with regard to typologies of form and social conventions yet these spaces exhibit resilience and the ability to adapt in the face of change. In this thesis, two different types of in-between space are considered: 1) informal urban spaces 2) situations of collaborative design. Describing in-between-ness with regard to spatial and social practices is a contribution of the thesis. This thesis argues that accepting, or even celebrating, the uncertainty of informal urban space is a viable approach to design. By reflecting on the disciplinary frameworks of architecture and interactive technologies it has been possible to find a means by which software engineers might learn to think and work like architects – and architects, inspired by the software engineers, might begin to develop a language to talk about the lived experience of space.

This thesis explores the history and future of two east London housing estates undergoing regeneration; Samuel House, a 1935-8 London County Council neo-Georgian perimeter block on the Haggerston West Estate demolished in 2014; and Balfron Tower, a 1965-7 Brutalist high-rise on the Brownfield Estate designed by Ernö Goldfinger and facing refurbishment and privatisation in 2016. To ‘make public’ expresses a demand and an aspiration; materially – to protect and extend public housing provision at a time when austerity measures are dismantling it in ideal and form [Phillips and Erdemci, 2012]; procedurally – to make visible problematic processes of urban change that are increasingly hidden from public view under the pervasive metaphor of regeneration [Campkin, 2013]; and methodologically – to make public the act of research through long-term collaborations with residents and other practitioners, using archival research and socially-engaged performance practice that reveals spatial changes and their affects on social relations [Harvie, 2013]. The thesis draws on the idea of ‘multiple publics’ to re-conceptualise a constructive approach to public housing and to evaluate the ethic of ‘making public’ [Fraser, 1990]. It works between architecture and performance to forge new connections with the research of Forty, Rendell, Schneider and Roms, and choreograph relationships between buildings, texts and residents through critical acts of writing, dramaturgy and re-enactment. The practice is conducted through performative workshops that open a social, discursive and imaginative space for residents to re-enact the histories of each estate and build collective knowledge and experience. This collaborative work is shared with wider publics through a feature-length artist’s film, site-specific performance, and six-week exhibition, and is documented in the thesis as two acts, comprising scenes interspersed with reflective essays. The evidence gathered is fed into formal and legislative frameworks with the aim of influencing housing policy: at Samuel House, a redesigned housing survey and at Balfron Tower, a listing upgrade nomination and online archive.

There is an archival gap in the South African record characterized by colonial tradition and marked, until recently, by the more binary discourse of black-and-white politics. This archival gap is compounded by the fact that space in a South African context has largely been seen and studied in a similarly skewed fashion. In addition, established research has tended to prioritize Continental and European conceptualizations of space and the other. This PhD proposes an alternative method of theorizing and interpreting the space and identity of the 19th century Muslim community of Cape Town’s Bokaap neighbourhood. Beginning with the premise that the architecture of this community was an architecture of action, this research suggests that it is through a radical empiricism of the spatial (a linking of ideas in postcolonial theory and religious studies) that the spaces of this community can be made more fully known. The outcome is the proposal of a new spatial framework for the study of Muslim space and identity, developed through a methodology that links empirical research with a phenomenological heuristic. This framework is infrastructural, associative, contingent and anticipatory in relation to the space of this 19th century community. The research includes documentary and photographic archival analysis in Cape Town as well as studying historical and contemporary case studies. The research takes its centre as the Auwal Mosque – the first established in South Africa in 1794. Chapter 1 situates and explores the mosque as a negotiator between ideas of the local and the global, the visible and the invisible. Chapter 2 grounds and extends this reading into the urban context of the city around the mosque through the ritual co-option of existing urban contexts. Chapter 3 investigates the spatial implications of the sacred terrain of shrines (kramats) as part of a larger theological narrative.