Newcastle University

Introduction

Martyn Dade-Robertson is Lecturer in Architecture and Communication in the School of Architecture Planning and Landscape. Martyn originally did a degree in Architecture at Newcastle University before embarking on an MPhil and PhD at Cambridge University (Darwin College) with a theses Entitled ‘Information Architecture in Screen Based Semantic Spaces’. This Ph.D. research lead to a number of successful cross disciplinary projects and collaborations and internship at Microsoft Research.

Research Interests

My main interests lie in the study and development of ‘architectonic systems’ which can, in contrast to ‘linguistic systems’, be see as the way in which the spatial environment and our articulation of it are used to communicate information. My research examines the broad culture of architecture and knowledge representation from mnemonic architecture through to the origins of storehouses of knowledge such as museums and libraries and I apply this knowledge to the design of computational systems, whether hardware or software, which use space (physical and virtual) as a way of articulating information and knowledge.

Other Expertise

I have a general interest in the application of architectural ideas and design method to the design of interactive systems and have worked on a wide range of hardware and software projects as an interaction designer.

Current Work

My book entitled ‘Architecture in the Information Age’ was published by Routledge in Spring 2011 with the aim of standing against the tide of accounts of digital media which, uncritically and with revolutionary zeal, celebrate the separation of information from its material means and, in the tradition of Remediation (Bolter et al. 2000) and Understanding Media (Manovich 2001), it seeks to place Digital Media into its appropriate historical context. This book will provide the foundation for the architecture of information by significantly extending its discussion beyond the pragmatics of organising and presenting digital information and into architectonic systems which will be defined as fundamental types of representation which are media independent but which have a particular place in the design of digital media.

I will also start a new project on June 1st 2010 called PATINA - funded by the EPSRC and AHRC jointly. The project website will be up soon but the press release is as follows:

"A £1.7m multi-disciplinary project which aims to revolutionise the design of technologies for supporting research has been awarded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) through the RCUK Digital Economy programme.

The project, entitled PATINA (Personal Architectonics of Interfaces to Artefacts) will be led by the University of Bristol in collaboration with the Universities of Brighton, Greenwich, Newcastle, Southampton and Swansea. The project includes involvement from Microsoft Research, Nokia Research and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Current digital research support systems take attention away from the material that they describe. PATINA will provide researchers with new opportunities to create research spaces that emphasise the primacy of research material, and support the sharing of research activities as well as results.

The consortium will build wearable prototypes that can enhance research objects by projecting related information back into their research space. These technologies will also provide the means to capture, record, and replay the researcher's activities to support intuitive archiving, sharing and publication of interactions with research objects. The design of the technologies will draw on theoretical frameworks of space developed from studies of research spaces as diverse as libraries, museums, homes and archaeological fieldwork sites.

I also continue to pitch in to research currently being undertaken at Culture Lab, particularily through Patrick Olivier and the emerging ILabs. I am currently a member of ILab Interaction and run Architecture and Interaction Design (ArchaID).

Postgraduate Supervision

I supervise two PhD. students:

Reham Abdellatif is studying mediated communication in the context of architectural education with an emphasis on project reviews and crits.

Abdelatif El-Allous is studying the virtualisation of municipal services in Tripoli by looking the effects of decentralising and digitising civic and community services.

 I'm always interested in taking on new PhD students and would be interested in working with students on projects related to Architecture and Interaction Design and Architecture and Synthetic Biology.  

Funding

EPSRC/AHRC June 2010-May 2013 "Personal Architectonics Through INteractions with Artefacts (PATINA) (£345,000 share of £1.7m project led by Bristol University)

EU Framework April 2009-March 2013 "Balance@Home" (Co-investigator with Patrick Olivier as PI - 5% share of £190,200)

Industrial Relevance

My research involves the design of digital artefacts and systems and, as such I have collaborated with companies including Microsoft and Philips and through PATNIA I will extend these collaborations to include the British Library, the V&A and Nokia.

Undergraduate Teaching

ARC1001 Architectural Design 1.1:
Project 1: The Language of Architecture
Project 2: Reading Places

ARC1016 Professional Studies 1.1 (Communication)

Postgraduate Teaching

ARC8015 Architecture in the Information Age

• Fraser M, Boddington A, Dade-Robertson M, Davies R, Earl G, Jones M, Moreau L. Personal Architectonics through Interactions with Artefacts. In: Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archeology. 2011, Beijing, China.
• Dade-Robertson M. "The Web is not a Tree": The Navigational Topology of the World Wide Web. Environment and Planning B: Planning & Design 2011, 38(1), 129-141.
• Dade-Robertson M. The Architecture of Information: Architecture, Interaction Design and the Patterning of Digital Information. London: Routledge, 2011.
• Fraser M, Boddington A, Dade-Robertson M, Davies R, Earl G, Jones M, Moreau L. PATINA: Personal Architectonics of INteractions with Artefacts. In: Digital Futures. 2010, Crowne Plaza, Nottingham, UK.
• Norman SJ, Lawson S, Olivier P, Watson P, Chan A, Dade-Robertson M, Dunphy P, Green D, Hiden H, Hook J, Jackson D. Data Services for Associated Motion Capture User Categories. AHRC/EPSRC E-Science Demonstrator EP/E005624/1. AHESSC website: Newcastle University, 2007. AHRC/EPSRC E-Science Demonstrator EP/E005624/1.
• Norman SJ, Lawson SEM, Olivier P, Watson P, Chan AMA, Dade-Robertson M, Dunphy P, Green D, Hiden H, Hook J, Jackson DG. AMUC: Associated Motion Capture User Categories. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 2009, 367(1898), 2771-2780.
• Koleva B, Greenhalgh K, Glover H, Schnadelbach S, Egglestone A, Hampshire S, Benford S, Dade-Robertson M. Supporting the Creation of Hybrid Museum Experiences. In: Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2009, Boston, MA, USA: ACM.
• Dade-Robertson M. Visual scenario representation in the context of a tool for interactive storytelling. In: Virtual storytelling: using virtual reality technologies for storytelling. 2007, St Malo, France: Springer.
• Dade-Robertson M. Visual Scenario Representation in the Context of a Tool for Interactive Storytelling. In: International Conference on Virtual Storytelling. 2007, Saint-Malo, France.
• Dade-Robertson M. Digital Mnemonics. Digital Creativity 2005, 15(1), 57-62.
• Dade-Robertson M, Schofield T. Macroscope and WikiVis: Two examples of data visualization inspired by material research practice. In: Digital Research. 2012, Oxford, UK.
• Hernan L, Dade-Robertson M, Schofield T. Material Macroscope: Merging digital and physical research spaces through interaction with research objects. In: Digital Research. 2012, Oxford, UK.
• Ramirez-Figuera C, Dade-Robertson M. Recombinatorial personal spaces of knowledge. In: Digital Research. 2012, Oxford, UK.
• Fraser M, Bennet P, Knibbe J, Davies R, Dade-Robertson M, Earl G. Making Time: Defining Rythms in Archaeological Research. In: Digital Futures. 2012, Aberdeen, UK.
• Dade-Robertson M. The Architecture of Information. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 2012, 39(1), 14-16.
• Dade-Robertson M, Taylor N. The Political Sensorium. In: Media Architecture Biennal. 2012, Aarhus, Denmark: ACM Press.