The majority of research in UoA 30, Architecture & the Built Environment is officially classified as world-leading or internationally excellent in terms of originality, significance and rigour, having been placed in the highest categories of 4* and 3* in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise.
| Quality Level | 4* | 3* | 2* | 1* | Unclassified |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| % of research activity | 25 | 35 | 30 | 5 | 5 |
Our key strategy during the current RAE period has been to strengthen the international profile and reputation of architectural and landscape research in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape.
Architectural research is supported by the Tectonic Cultures Research Group.
The merger of architecture, landscape and planning into the School facilitates interdisciplinary work and research collaboration, with urban design and landscape in particular providing important contact points with Town and Country Planning.
Research operates in the tradition of arts and humanities, with individual scholarship as its normal mode and the production of high quality publications in the form of books and academic papers as the most important output. Since 2001 we have published 13 books with publishers such as Oxford University Press, Blackwell, Routledge, Continuum and Bloomsbury. A major research project, 'Mock-Tudor Architecture' is under way, sponsored by AHRC.
Our international perspective has strengthened: of the 11 Architecture staff who took up appointments during the RAE period, eight originated from outside the UK and six were working outside the UK at the time of their appointment. Our Researchers are also active participants in UK/Overseas conferences and we have ourselves been instrumental in conferences in Newcastle such as Constructing Place (2002); Terrains of Architecture and Landscape (2004); Architecture in the Space of Flows (2007). This last conference was a collaboration between the Tectonic Culture Research Group and Culture Lab, a £4m SRIF funded state-of-the-art research facility opened in 2006.
The translation of architecture research into practice is illustrated by the successful transfer to a spin-out company (in 2001) under the auspices of the RIBA, of most of the researchers in the Construction Informatics Research Centre (CIRC) (formerly part of the University).
Editorship of Landscape Research is held within the School, and other staff are on the editorial boards of a number of international journals. Senior staff hold positions of responsibility on a number of learned societies: for example Ballantyne is Chairman of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain. Thompson has been awarded a prize by the Landscape Institute for his contribution to landscape research.