Abstract

Over the past three years, an innovative collaborative research partnership, funded by the AHRC has been established between the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge and SCABAL architecture studio, London.

The partnership is entitled ‘Creative Discipline. Exploring the value of design in building high quality schools supporting excellence in teaching and learning.’

Currently, three doctoral researchers, Emma Dyer, Karolina Szynalska and Tom Bellfield are conducting PhD studies, jointly supervised by Dr Cathy Burke at the Faculty of Education and Dominic Cullinan at SCABAL . Their research questions and subsequent studies have been generated through this bipedular partnership, with one foot in academia and the other foot in practice.

This seminar will share some current research findings, projections and questions we are pursuing together. The presentations and discussions will be valuable for anyone who is interested in how the built environment matters in education. It will also interest those who want to find out more about the experience of collaborative doctoral studies from the point of view of researchers and their academic and non-academic partners.

Guest discussants:

• Dominic Cullinan (SCABAL)

• Dr Rosie Parnell, Reader, Department of Architecture and the Built Environment, Northumbria University. Rosie’s research, practice and teaching combine interests in design participation, architecture education and children’s spaces.

• Dr Pam Woolner, Lecturer in Education, University of Newcastle. Pam has developed Participatory research approaches to school redesign using a range of visual and spatial activities to both engage and empower participants in sharing their experiences and knowledge.