The Kent School of Architecture offers a full-time and part-time research programme, leading to MPhil and PhD research degrees. The School promotes innovative and interdisciplinary research study in architecture, urbanism and related fields. The main objective is to combine contemporary advanced research with an educational agenda, preparing candidates to practise in a global academic and professional world.

A particular feature of the KSA research degree programme is the wide spectrum of investigation and the possibility of undertaking research by design.

PhD students have access to all University of Kent facilities and a weekly seminar designed for research students only. Each candidate is entitled to two supervisors.

The Programme Director is Professor Gordana Fontana-Giusti. KSA supervisors include: Dr Gerald Adler, Dr Timothy Brittain-Catlin, Professor Marialena Nikolopoulou and Professor Don Gray.

Staff are active in research and give papers at conferences nationally and internationally.

KSA incorporates the Centre for Research in European Architecture (CREAte), which focuses on research in architectural humanities, and Centre for Architecture and Sustainable Environment (CASE), which promotes research in the field of sustainable architecture.

Full details of staff research interests can be found on our website.

Dr Gerald Adler: Senior Lecturer in Cultural Context and Design; Deputy Head of School

Twentieth-century architectural history and theory, in particular in Great Britain and Germany; Heinrich Tessenow; architecture in its wider cultural and philosophical contexts; the place of the ruin in the modern architectural imagination. Recent publications include: Scale: Imagination, Perception and Practice in Architecture (co-ed, 2011); Robert Maguire & Keith Murray (2012).

Keith Bothwell: Senior Lecturer in Environment and Sustainability

Sustainable urban design and case studies of green buildings, in particular energy performance resulting from passive design; the environmental impact of timber in schools; incorporating daylighting performance into building regulations.

Dr Timothy Brittain-Catlin: Senior Lecturer in Cultural Context; Director of Research

Early 19th-century English architecture and, in particular, the work of A W N Pugin. Recent publications include: How to Read a Building (2007); Churches (2008); The English Parsonage in the Early Nineteenth Century (2008); Leonard Manasseh and Partners (2010); Scale: Imagination, Perception and Practice in Architecture (co-ed, 2011).

Professor Gordana Fontana-Giusti: Director, PhD Programme and Graduate Studies; Programme Director, Architecture and Cities MA

Contemporary architectural and urban theory; in particular philosophy and its relation to architecture, perspective and its relation to architecture and the city; representation, conceptual art and the relationship between the arts and architecture; regeneration, public spaces and sustainable urban design; urban landscapes, cities and water. Recent publications include: Scale: Imagination, Perception and Practice in Architecture (co-ed, 2011)

Howard Griffin: Programme Director, Architectural Visualisation MA; Director of Recruitment and Marketing

Architecture and film; the representation and use of architecture in film; the use of film and visualisation in architecture; virtual architecture and digital space; looking at form and space in virtual worlds and cyberspace; the architecture and symbolism of freemasonry in England.

Dr Manolo Guerci: Lecturer of Cultural Context and Design

Secular architecture, particularly domestic, ranging from Early-Modern European palaces with emphasis on connections between Italy, France and Britain in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, to Post-War social housing estates; relations between European Modernism and traditional Japanese architecture; conservation of historic buildings, particularly 17th-century construction techniques in Rome. Recent publications include: The Great Houses of the Strand: 1550-1650. History, Style, Planning and Influence (forthcoming).

Dr David Haney: Lecturer in Cultural Context

Relationship between landscape and architecture considered from both professional and cultural perspectives; history of modern architecture and landscape; history of ‘green' or ecological design; ecological concepts in German modernism. Recent publications include: When Modern was Green: Life and Work of Landscape Architect Leberecht Migge (2010).

Professor Marialena Nikolopoulou: Professor of Sustainable Architecture

Comfort of complex environments; urban microclimate; occupant perception and use of space; sustainable design and rational use of energy in the built environment.

Michael Richards: Senior Lecturer in Design; Programme Director, MArch

Design studio pedagogy in the area of ethics; the variances between the physical and fictional relative locations of ‘place' in cinema; the implications for an understanding of contemporary cities.

Dr Henrik Schoenefeldt: Lecturer in Sustainable Architecture

History and theory of environmental design, in particular in 19th and 20th-century Europe and North America; architectural design in the context of the history and philosophy of science; history of glass structures for human occupation and horticulture; environmental design pedagogy.

Dr Richard Watkins: Lecturer in Sustainable Architecture

Urban microclimate and the urban heat island, refrigeration, air movement and air quality; daylighting; climate change; future weather data; building performance modelling and measurement. Recent publications: Daylight in Buildings (co-ed, 2010); The Design Reference Year – a new approach to testing a building in more extreme weather using UKCP09 projections (2012).

Further information:

• School website
• School staff profiles

T: +44 (0)1227 827272
E: information@kent.ac.uk

Professor Gordana Fontana-Giusti
Kent School of Architecture, Marlowe Building,
University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NR,UK
T: +44 (0)1227 824700
E: g.fontana-giusti@kent.ac.uk

Before applying, please read our ‘How to apply’ section.

You can then go straight to the online application form by clicking the programme below:

• MPhil
• PhD

• School website
• Staff profiles
• Graduate School
• Open Days
• Order or download a prospectus