Fieldwork in Architectur
The Royal Danish Academy, the PhD School
Language
English
Lecturer(s)
Runa Johannessen, Associate Professor IABL
Guro Sollid, Associate Professor IABL
Course description
This PhD course explores fieldwork as a critical and creative methodological approach in architectural research. Moving beyond conventional site analysis, it examines how architects engage with environments, communities, and material contexts through perspectives informed by feminist ecology and situated reflective and artistic practices.
The course introduces theoretical frameworks for fieldwork epistemologies in architecture and the spatial disciplines. Drawing on feminist ecological thought, it emphasizes relational understandings of space and the interdependence between humans, non-humans, and environments. Concepts such as situated knowledge, positionality, and ethics of care guide reflections on how researchers operate in the field and how knowledge emerges through specific social, political, and ecological relations. The course also critically examines how “the field” is often contested, for instance when landscapes and built environments are shaped by extractive practices, historical inequalities, and asymmetries of power.
Through seminars, methodological discussions, and field-based exercises, participants will explore qualitative, artistic and experimental research methods including observation, mapping, ethnographic engagement, and visual documentation.
Participants will develop and reflect on fieldwork strategies relevant to their own doctoral research while addressing the ethical and political implications of situated architectural research.
Dates
22-25 February
Venue
Physical attendance/online
ECTS
3
Application deadline
10/01-2027 via https://katalog.kglakademi.dk/phdtilmeld.php