Towards a conversational architecture

This practice-based PhD explores the reciprocal role of conversation as a refinement within a participative practice in architecture. The emphasis on conversation prioritises creative action over a priori ideation or any other determinism; within both the lived production of and in the experienced realisation of the architectural object.

In today’s contingent environment for both the commissioning and construction of a building, the architect’s role is becoming more recognised as both an enabler and a negotiator, an enabled co-author rather than an isolated author. These methodologies are studied as one of the means by which an architecture can accrete value and meaning and thereby contribute to society and the discipline.

The thesis explores the active role of the architect in space production and aims to use the performance of architecture as research. The research will focus on the conversations between human and non human factors manifest in the making and experiencing of architecture.

Using four comparative case studies, reviewed at all stages from briefing to final completion and use, this PhD critically assesses the methods of conversation in design practice. These are compared and contextualised in the context of conversational practice within the modern movement of architecture. This methodology allows key moments of transformation within the design manifestation to be identified and considered.

The PhD delivers an expression of performative research that contributes to the overall understanding of each project and its value in comparison and as a whole to practice. Reflection on personal actions in practice has opened up narratives within and between the work of other (modern) architects and the subsequent criticism shaping professional discourse.

The contribution to knowledge is sited in the framing, contextualising and analysis of conversational practice. It posits the value of a performative turn within architecture; as a heuristic technique that reveals collective needs, with the architect as a maker of enactive space and, therefore, is overall able to reprioritise the profession’s value within the collective imagination.