A key issue, theoretical as well as practical, in the design of museums and galleries is how the layout of space interacts with the layout of objects to express an intended message or realise a specific effect. This issue can be addressed against the background of a coherent body of literature which, using the space syntax theory and method, offers a certain rigour in the analysis of spatial layouts, and within the context of a smaller, less systematic body of object layout studies which, focusing on curatorial intent, looks only obliquely at space. It is the intention of this thesis to try to develop a synthetic overview of spatial and object layout within a single theoretical framework, seeking to contribute to a better understanding of museum morphology. This combined framework is built through a series of paired case studies of European museums and galleries specially selected, and designed to allow the pursuit of specific theoretical questions. The aim of these case studies is illuminative and explorative rather than exhaustive, since each case study is intensive and requires a protracted period of field work. The analysis sets out from the conspicuous similarities between each pair of museums, which set the background for exploring critical differences with resp ect to the layout of space and objects, and as manifested in the observable patterns of visiting. The ideas generated from this analysis are then used to describe the main dimensions of variability of spatial layout, display strategies and visiting patterns. On this basis, the study proposes a theoretical model that relates these dimensions of variability, and shows them to derive from a set of basic principles, given as possibilities to be explored and combined. Depending on the way museums use these principles, it is possible to distinguish between museums that intend to convey a pre-given meaning and reproduce information, and museums that aim at creating fields of possible meaning and producing a richer spatial structure.

My research is practice-led and focuses on processes of casting through ongoing and hands-on experimentation at full scale. Set within the workshops of Grymsdyke Farm, it engages with materials in a direct and intimate manner. Photography is employed as a practical documentation tool but also as a physical and theoretical counterpart to casting, and with the photographs becoming design works in themselves. Casting and photography share tactile and spatial relationships with architecture, yet little discourse exists around them. This thesis studies the individual properties of both practices and how they correlate, bringing to light new observations about how they overlap with architecture. It examines works by different practitioners, such as the inventor of photography William Henry Fox Talbot, architects and builders Pier Luigi Nervi and Mark West, and the artist Medardo Rosso, to show how the synergy of shared properties in casting and photography can deepen our understanding of architecture in terms of time and preservation, fluid and solid form, copy and reproducibility, positive and negative space. As digital processes prevail in contemporary architectural practice, inspiration taken from nature through mathematical and abstract constructs often lacks a necessary relationship to the physical realities of making. How can an intimate knowledge of material processes be relevant in architectural practice today? How can situated modes of craft be integrated meaningfully into ever-evolving forms of design production? At Grymsdyke Farm the realms of inspiration, execution and place are not distinct but inseparable. All research projects presented in this thesis are integrated into the physical reality of the place. In addition Grymsdyke Farm hosts a number of site-specific works built with visiting architecture students and other practitioners. Grymsdyke Farm is a living–working environment that aims to establish a diverse collective. Through the constant exchange and sharing of ideas, experiences and expertise it becomes a place moulded over time, capturing individual and collaborative design in the making.

Recently there has been a growing interest in the ways in which people use their time during travel, and what different types of value (economic or personal) such ‘travel-time activity’ provides. The activities of public transport passengers have been explored from a number of perspectives, and several of these have been reported to have a positive influence on the experience of the journey. However, within existing research the bus has received almost no specific attention, with most studies focussing on the train. At the same time, there is a stated policy need to improve the attractiveness of bus travel and increase patronage on local bus services in the UK. This thesis draws these strands together, and investigates how the activities in which bus passengers engage on-the-move give meaning to their journeys and help to shape their experiences and perceptions of the mode. In doing so, it considers how a focus on travel-time activity is potentially a valuable way of improving journey experiences for users, and increasing the attractiveness of bus travel to non-users. Identifying the need to explore travel-time activity on the bus, the thesis develops a discussion of what is already known about the ways in which passengers (largely rail passengers) use their time, and how this has been found to influence their experiences and perceptions of the journey. Within this, specific attention is paid to the importance of carried objects and mobile technologies (mobile phones, books, music players, and more) in facilitating travel-time activities. In doing so, this thesis considers how existing travel-time research is relevant to the context of the bus journey. It identifies and addresses three gaps in existing knowledge: (i) It provides the missing link between research which has demonstrated that travel-time activity has the potential to improve journey experiences for public transport passengers, and research which has specifically explored the journey experiences of bus passengers. (ii) It explores the current lack of understanding concerning the ways in which travel-time activities on the bus give meaning to passengers’ experiences of the journey. In particular, there has been little focus on how the travel-time “tools” – the carried objects, mobile technologies, and ICTs – are potentially enabling bus passengers to conduct different activities during travel-time. (iii) It seeks to fill a gap in existing knowledge in terms of specific research into subjectivity of travel-time on the bus, and how it is enacted and experienced differently by different individuals and groups. The thesis follows a three-phase methodology in generating new empirical data on travel-time activity and journey experience on the bus. First, two phases of qualitative data collection were undertaken. This involved a novel online discussion group utilising the popular social networking site “Facebook”. Following this two focus groups were conducted with bus users and car users to explore the qualitative findings in greater depth and inform the construction of the final quantitative phase. This consisted of a large-scale on-board questionnaire survey of 840 bus passengers on five routes in Bristol, UK. Thus the qualitative data provided rich discourses and explanations of passengers’ experience of travel-time, and the quantitative data tested these findings amongst a sample of the wider bus user population. This thesis finds that there are several activities and technologies particularly suited to the bus journey, and that people engage in these for a number of reasons. For example, travel-time activity is sometimes valuable for providing a “slice” of personal time within which to relax or complete personal tasks. For other passengers (or at other times) it helps to mitigate some of the more common negative experiences encountered along the journey such as boredom, stress, and social discomfort. The subjectivity of the passenger is central to explanations of travel-time use on the bus; travel-time is perceived differently by different people and thus is used and experienced in many ways. The thesis pays attention to the tensions that this creates within the collective experience of the journey. In particular the intensely social nature of bus travel is explained as being at the heart of the experience. For some the journey is a chance to socialise, where for others the public spaces of the bus can engender a lack of a sense of personal space and a negative experience. In concluding, the thesis identifies a disparity between the quantitative and qualitative findings. The qualitative data go into depth in explaining the rich, contextual experience of activity, where the quantitative findings focus on the immediate experience and find other factors to be of more primary significance than activity – particularly punctuality, age, and a person’s social disposition. Thus, the thesis contextualises its own findings, highlighting the potential of travel-time activity in increasing the attractiveness of bus travel, whilst at the same time firmly framing the importance of this new knowledge within the wider picture of the bus as a service.

This thesis examines the emergence of the professional architect in the provinces of eighteenth-century Britain, drawing upon new research into the career of William Newton (1730-1798) of Newcastle upon Tyne. Section I assesses the growth of professionalism, identifying the criteria that distinguished professions from other occupations and their presence in architectural practitioners. It contrasts historians’ emphasis upon innovative designs by artist-architects, such as Sir John Vanbrugh and Robert Adam, with their absence from the realisation of their designs. Clients had to employ capable building craftsmen to supervise construction and this was an opportunity for an alternative practitioner to emerge, the builder-architect exemplified by Newton, offering clients proven practical experience, frequent supervision, peer group recommendation and financial responsibility. Patronage networks were a critical factor in securing commissions for provincial builder-architects, demonstrated here by a reconstruction of Newton’s connections to the north-east élite. Section II reveals that the coal-based north-east economy sustained architectural expenditure, despite national fluctuations. A major proposal of this thesis is that, contrary to Borsay’s theory of an ‘English urban renaissance’, north-east towns showed continuity and slow development. Instead, expenditure was focused upon élite social spaces and industrial infrastructure, and by the extensive repurposing of the hinterlands around towns. This latter development constituted a ‘rural renaissance’ as commercial wealth created country estates for controlled access to social pursuits by élite families. Section III examines the designs of architects practising in north-east England during the eighteenth century, proposing that the martial history and cultural traditions of the region sustained the appeal of castellated and Roman architecture (as interpreted in the publications of Andrea Palladio) among its architectural patrons. The thesis concludes that ii concentration upon London-based artist-architects has obscured the contribution to British architecture of provincial builder-architects and the varied cultural aspirations of their clients.

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Unlike spoken and written theories, the constructional ‘theories’ explored in this thesis are drawn essentially from ‘practice’. While occasionally drawing upon what architects said and wrote, the thesis investigates the extent to which architects have worked out their theoretical propositions within the practical aspects of building, without necessarily articulating them verbally. Of the recent discussions on the relation of architectural theory to building practice, Kenneth Frampton’s Studies in Tectonic Culture (1995) stands out; but Frampton’s book is limited by his anti‐postmodernist framework, his mode of argument that largely attributes the value of architectural works to a theoretical dimension, his treatment of construction as a constant and passive given, and his disregard for the entirety of British architecture. This thesis criticises Studies in Tectonic Culture, arguing that British architecture offers some alternatives for thinking about the dialectics of ‘theory’ and ‘construction’. The way in which some British architects of the late 19th and early 20th centuries worked – experimental, craft‐based and treating the process of construction as integral to the process of design – indicated that for them construction was more than simply a medium through which an architect’s ideas are expressed; and out of their calculated employment of construction, considered in terms of ‘labour’, ‘building’, ‘material’, and ‘representation’, could emerge a certain ‘implicit intellectuality’, which was no less a ‘theory’ than verbally articulated statements existing prior to construction. It is not theory that dictates construction, but rather that ‘construction’ itself can be a ‘theory’ in the process of becoming. In opening up possibilities for thinking about constructional ‘theory’, the thesis suggests the removal of an assumed theory/practice distinction, proposing instead ‘practice’ as essentially an indispensable body of ‘immanent theory’ as an alternative to Frampton’s theory of the Tectonic.

This thesis explores the cultural cross-fertilization between the orient and the occident by studying the eastern concept of the void that brings all components of the universe into a fluid continuous whole. This void is not in binary opposition to the full as in western dualism but rather co-exists with the full in a dynamic balance and complementary position following the Taoist philosophy. It is thus essentially characterized by its perpetual mutation, its transience. In this perspective, the oriental void emerges as a set of connections that incessantly evolve through time: the hyphenation of the void. My research proposes to incorporate this interpretation of the oriental void into the occidental architectural approach. Therefore, it develops the idea of conceptual and material hyphens that are familiar images to western culture and that also provide tangible and material expressions to the hyphenation. Conceptual hyphens serve as a sensible metaphor for the elusive principles of the void while material hyphens give materiality and palpability to the abstract notion of the void. These definitions are not mutually exclusive so that a hyphen can be both conceptual and material at times. Hyphens are then used as design devices in the architectural practice of the void. Their combination generates the architectural projects’ narratives, material substance and, affects their visual representations. The subsequent architecture of the void appears as an organic entity which grows and decays through its endless interactions with the surrounding environment. The latter is not restricted to the usual urban and architectural conditions but expands to socio-cultural, economical and political parameters. This architecture is thus always in the process of becoming amid a wide ecosystem and prompts the awakening of its users to the present moment in the current situation. In consequence, it generates an ecology of the void where architecture is experienced in the Heideggerian sense as a built thing that enables its users to dwell in unison with the universe. The issue of hyphenation is in fact a reflection on my own status an inbetweener drifting in the east–west intercultural flow of our nomadic contemporary society. The thesis represents, therefore, an investigation into my personal way of life.

My thesis explores the social experience of building construction work in and around Paris during the 1960s. My examination of construction sites shifts the focus of architectural history away from the personality of the architect by considering the wider public discourses of urban development. Building sites became spaces that expressed preoccupations about economic growth, labour immigration and the demolition of working-class districts. Drawing on media archives and rarely examined trade union material, my research reveals voices of publics usually excluded from narratives of the production of the city. My thesis contributes to a history of the experience of urban change. My first chapter considers building sites from an international perspective, and explores discourses of French national identity with regards to urban transformation. I analyse debates about economic productivity, technology and labour immigration. Chapter Two examines media representation of building sites, and in particular considers how state television helped contribute to a discourse of Gaullist nationalism. Chapter Three explores the living conditions of construction workers. I analyse the existence of bidonvilles on the edge of Paris in the context of modernist architectural and urban theory. I examine how the popular press made an explicit connection between immigrant workers and crime, and I chart the attempts to improve living conditions for construction workers in France. Chapter Four investigates how state urban development overlooked the social impact of construction projects on existing communities. I analyse how local residents protested against the construction of suburban housing estates, roads and airports, and explore how community groups proposed alternative solutions. Finally, in Chapter Five I analyse how the French media and building workers’ unions used the phenomenon of construction accidents to push their respective political and social agendas. Interpreted by different parties for differing reasons, construction disasters became the centre of debates about the social implications of modernising Paris.

The thesis investigates psychotopography: the dynamic interrelationship of emotions, landscape, and the individual. Psychotopography suggests an all-encompassing connection between landscape and emotion and attempts to outline the intricacies of this, subsequently providing new ways of mapping the landscape, in particular, a re-mapping of emotional and psychic responses to the urban space. The aim of psychotopography is to create new understandings of ourselves, the ways in which we interact with the city, and the identities that arise as a result, through an exploration of the psychotopographic states and tendencies of a place, as identified in creative processes such as fiction, art and film. This study is done with particular reference to the landscape of Los Angeles and individuals relationship with it. Psychotopography is a term specifically used by Los-Angeles based American novelist Steve Erickson, and therefore the thesis approaches psychotopography principally through Erickson’s writings, using studies of five psychotopographic states identified in his work: emotion, happiness, numbers, liquidity and apocalypse. These five main chapters deal with themes that are significant not only in Erickson’s writings but as part of the experience of Los Angeles and the surrounding area, and the interrelation between these themes, their motifs and the notion of psychotopography. The psychotopography of Erickson’s novels and characters is intricately woven through all aspects of his writing and therefore the methodology used during the study of Erickson’s writing is close thematic analysis. This allows a highly detailed and deliberate exploration of both the mechanics and concepts within Erickson’s fiction. The thesis will develop the notion of psychotopography both within the novels and the wider context of the Los Angeles and Southern Californian landscape, going on to suggest how this notion might be applied to other disciplines and mediums.

Adolf Loos repeatedly discusses the role of art in relation to architecture in his essays, but many of his statements appear either repetitive or inconsistent with one another, and are difficult to reconcile with his buildings. Considering Loos’s writing and built work together, rather than separately, suggests that instead of being fully formulated as a methodology and then implemented in practice, Loos’s argument emerges serially and in a piecemeal fashion with the progressive development of his buildings through practice—a theory of making. The line of enquiry into the historical and theoretical material is informed by the division of my own design work in practice into sculptural components and furnishings. The research proceeds on the hypothesis that Loos similarly divided each of his buildings into discrete elements that he either understood as art, or considered functional—and that he deployed ornament to signal the latter, rather than the former. This hypothesis is investigated by tracing the origin and development in his built projects of a number of particular components of the Müller House, in relation to the emergence and revision of specific aspects of Loos’s written argument on art and architecture in the essays contemporaneous with these buildings. The investigations are structured by reference to the distinct qualities of each component as identified through the design research, focusing on Composite House. While the research method is specific to my own design work in practice, the investigation is structured so as to produce autonomous outcomes in relation to Loos and modernism, which are meaningful when decoupled from this field data. Loos has to date been predominantly examined through conceptions of modernism as the expression of function, structure, technology or society; however, it is argued here that modern architecture could conversely be understood, through Loos, as a form of art practice.