Architecture PhD | Built environment PhD

For over 30 years, the University of Brighton has brought innovation and impact through research in built environment, architecture and interior architecture.

From investigating the energy efficiency and performance of buildings, to examining the interrelationships between people, natural resources and the built environment, sustainable urban living to architectural humanities, our staff and PhD students are at the leading edge of empirical and theoretical research into building design and construction. We are also working to understand the shifting nature of education in the built environment to adapt to an ever-changing industry.

We welcome PhD proposals that have real-world application as much of our research is in fields of practical impact. Data generated by researchers in our Construction Engineering and Management Research and Enterprise Group is being used, for example, to enhance the design of double-skin facades on buildings in order to improve their thermal performance, and to assess the impact of construction methods upon the provision of climate resilient affordable housing in Nigeria and Uganda, while the University of Brighton's Waste House continues to provide a living laboratory of sustainable architectural and building research.

Our Built environment PhD and Architecture PhD students have gone on to a variety of different roles following the successful completion of their research. These include academic posts as lecturers and postdoctoral research assistants at Brighton and elsewhere, plus research roles in, for example, the construction industry. Many have gone on to positions in industry, for example as senior consultants for facilities management contractors and as directors of construction companies.

You may wish to consider the Architectural Research MRes as an introduction to research in aspects of these disciplines, blending a taught element with a substantial research project.

Apply to 'Built Environment' in the application portal

Key Information

As a Built environment PhD student or Architecture PhD student at the University of Brighton, you will

be able to draw on research approaches from a variety of related fields, including civil engineering, environmental science, sustainable design and human geography. You can develop research plans and apply methods involving both quantitative and qualitative data, supported by appropriate research methods training. benefit from a supervisory team comprising two to three members of academic staff. Depending on your research specialism you may also have an additional external supervisor from another School, another research institution, or industry.
be provided with desk space and access to a desktop PC, usually in one of the postgraduate offices on the 6^thfloor of the award-winning Cockcroft Building, or within the adjacent Heavy Engineering Block. You will additionally benefit from access to a range of electronic resources via the University’s Online Library, as well as to the physical book and journal collections housed within the Aldrich Library and other campus libraries.
have access to state-of-the-art equipment, including suites of monitors and data loggers for the measurement of air permeability, irradiance, thermal performance and air quality within buildings and a range of facilities on the Moulsecoomb site, including a water efficiency laboratory, specialist microbial and water quality laboratories, hydraulic flumes, an experimental river basin, geochemical and geotechnical laboratories, microscopy laboratories (optical and scanning electron microscopes), and a concrete laboratory, as well as a large array of field equipment. All of these facilities are supported by a team of dedicated laboratory and workshop technicians.

Academic environment

As a Built environment PhD student or Architecture PhD student, you will be an integral part of the School of Architecture, Technology and Engineering and take an active role in a range of intellectual and social activities within the school.

All postgraduate students working on built environment topics are integrated into one or more of our Centres for Research and Enterprise Excellence (COREs) or Research and Enterprise Groups (REGs), including:

Students have support and alignment across specialists in architecture, construction, and social sciences, bringing opportunities to present ‘work in progress’ to specialists and non-specialists and to reach a broad network of researchers.

The Brighton Doctoral College offer a training programme for postgraduate researchers, covering research methods and transferable (including employability) skills. Attendance at appropriate modules within this programme is encouraged, as is contribution to the School’s fortnightly seminar series. Academic and technical staff also provide more subject-specific training.

Researchers within the School of Architecture, Technology and Engineering are engaged in work across a wide range of topic areas, and thus your PhD research could pursue interests in almost any area of built environment.

Our particular areas of specialism currently include:

Advanced technologies in the built environment, architecture and construction
Construction management
Education in architecture and the built environment
Energy efficiency and building performance
Environmental impact of buildings and construction
Housing, community, people and planning
Project management
Sustainability of the built environment
Interior architecture and urban planning
Architectural humanities, theory, and ethics
Practice-based architecture
Designing sustainable urban living

While considering supervision from the University of Brighton, you may like to explore the following PGR programme area, too:

Design PhD.

Some of our supervisors

Dr Mahmood Alam

I am interested in supervising postgraduate research students in the following areas: Vacuum Insulation Panels; Building Performance Evaluation; Energy Efficiency in Built Environment; Building retrofit

Dr Tilo Amhoff

Tilo Amhoff is interested in PhD proposals in the history of architecture and planning in the context of international modernisms, especially proposals that address the material practices of the production of architecture and its intellectual and manual labours, and interdisciplinary approaches that mobilise the knowledge and methods of the humanities.

Dr Katy Beinart

I’m interested in supervising practice-based PhDs, particularly those that are interdisciplinary and combine aspects of art practice and theory with architecture/urban studies/spatial practice alongside other disciplines and practices (and may have a socially engaged or participatory element), and which might explore themes of migration, heritage, contested space and regeneration.

Current PhD Students:

Ilenia Atzori: From ruins to community heritage: The role of storytelling in building a collective memory

Antony Dixon: Here is where we meet (Body, Matter and Things): A sensory investigation, through co-creative practice, of the misplaced and found.

Jessica Melville-Brown: Co-designing the future: An exploration into the development of new methods for creative engagement, examining the influence of gender roles, socio-economic and ethno-cultural factors in the co-design process with young people.

PhD Examinations:

James O'Leary: Interface Architecture: Towards the transformation of Belfast's 'Peacewalls' through Situated Practice (Internal Examiner)

M Phil examinations:

Lida Driva: The Operation of the Hidden. Towards an understanding of architectural and urban space: the case of Omonia Square (External Examiner)

Luis Diaz

Luis Diaz supervises and examines at PhD level and is available for supervision on topics related to housing, spatial form, movement and promenades in architectural and urban space, and architectural semiotics and structuralism. Topics can span the range of scales from interior space to architecture and urban landscapes. Diaz is currently supervising a PhD on the historical and contemporary use of the figure ground in urban design and another (at the Oslo School of Architecture) on the role of community engagement in listed brutalist housing estates. Current research areas focus on movement and circulation patterns in housing estates, post-war social and council housing, and everyday experiences of housing.

Anuschka Kutz

I welcome expressions of interest for supervisory PhD support for both theoretical and practice-based PhDs in the field of architecture, urbanism, everyday space and culture, touching on themes such as urban, peri-urban and rural cultures and change, fragilities in a global and local context, identities and territories, everyday spatial practices and tactics, societal change (such as, diversification and ageing), spatial ethnography and civic space. I am particularly interested in PhDs that explore multi-scalar dependencies, such as how overriding socio-economic, political, environmental and cultural forces and shifts impact and manifest themselves in the everyday lived realities, and vice versa. I encourage inter- trans- or cross-disciplinary approaches, as well as social engagement projects. My own research currently combines close-up, in-depth spatial, ethnographic readings and cartographies of everyday spatial tactics and lived space (urban, institutional and domestic) to dissect how overriding changes may manifest themselves in close-up, personal scenarios and how architecture and urban practice could harness knowledge gained in this field to offer creative, alternative approaches to mitigate emergent changes and to give capacity to nurture the human and civic dimension in our environments.

Dr Elisa Lega

Elisa welcomes PhD proposals that critically investigate new possible physical, temporal and relational qualities for the spaces we inhabit.

Dr Sam Lynch

Dr Lynch is interested in supervising both theoretical and practice-based PhDs that challenge traditional modes of architectural representation. Lynch's own research interests focus on experiential time and investigate the temporal and spatial complexities of drawing architecture.

Prof Lesley Murray

I am interested in supervising doctoral students on a range of topics including transport and mobilities, urban sociology, visual sociology and gender and generation. In addition, I welcome proposals from students seeking to adopt creative and inventive methodologies and methods. I am currently supervising projects on: lived experiences of the anthropocene; urban place-attachment across generations; sequential art in architectural practice; urban pocket parks; generation and automobility futures; and the wellbeing of refugee children.

Dr Poorang Piroozfar

I have supervised seven PhDs to successful completion in:

Operational performance and life cycle assessment of double skin façades for office refurbishments in the UK
Integrated Façade Systems for highly- to fully-glazed office buildings in hot and arid climates
The judgement process in architectural design competitions as a deliberative communicative practice
Urban Management in Post-Conflict Settings: The Case of Baghdad, Iraq
Managing sustainability through architectural design decision processes: influences of values and frames
Critical success factors for integration of value, financial risk, and environmental management systems in medium-sized design and build projects
A future-proof cultural heritage: Responsible, safe, and effective retrofit measures for traditional listed dwellings

I have two more PhD students at different stages of their studies working on smart cities.

I am interested in taking on new PhD students in following areas:

Digitality in architecture, the built environment, and construction
Smart(ness) at building, community, city and regional levels
IoT (BIM, aerial/UAV scan, point cloud scan to BIM) for Facilities Management, Urban Regeneration / Restoration and Cultural Heritage Preservation
Design Research and Design Theory
3D printing and additive manufacturing for post-disaster fast recovery/relief
Off-site Manufacture for construction, Prefabrication, MMC
(Mass) customisation, personalisation, modularisation, standardisation, industrialised building systems, and automation in the AEC industry
Building kinetic, double-skin and integrated facade systems (energy, lighting, indoor comfort, carbon footprint, environmental impact, technology and design)

Dr Sarah Stevens

Sarah Stevens supervisory interests sit within the exploration of relational, time sensitive and dynamic design.

Current Supervision

Terry Meade, working title: Drawing Out Occupation: a study of how drawing may be used to reveal and clarify spatial complexities in a conflict zone.

Joy Xin, working title: Observing London and Beijing via Mrs Dalloway and Rickshaw Boy.' An exploration of the potential of novels for revealing histories of movement and interaction within urban analysis.

Examinations

PhD Examination, Francesco Pomponi, University of Brighton. Title: Operational performance and life cycle assessment of double skin façades for office refurbishments in the UK

PhD Examination, Yahya Ibraheem, University of Brighton. Title: Integrated Facade Systems for highly- to fully-glazed office buildings in hot and arid climates

PhD Examination, Sabrina Barbosa, University of Brighton. Title: Thermal performance of naturally ventilated office buildings with double skin façade under Brazilian climate conditions

Dr Ben Sweeting

Ben is interested in supporting doctoral research that addresses how design disciplines work within complex systemic contexts. Ben has experience with creative, theoretical, and historical research and has examined doctoral research internationally.

Prof Andre Viljoen

Andre Viljoen welcomes expression of interest for supervisory support from individuals interested in architecture and urban design, with a particular focus on sustainable design, urban agriculture and alternative architectural practices including engagement processes. His inaugural lecture as Professor of Architecture provides an overview of his personal research.

He has acted as a Ph.D. supervisor at the University of Brighton and Cambridge and as an examiner at University College London (The Bartlett), University of Sheffield, Oxford Brookes University, and Brighton.

Doctoral Post-Graduate Research supervision:

2015-23 (Part Time), Ph.D. Lead Supervisor: University of Brighton Candidate, Magda Rich, Topic The Healing City: Adaptation of Care farming principles in dense urban areas.

2009-14, Ph.D. Lead Supervisor: University of Brighton Candidate Mikey Tomkins, Topic Community Food Gardens.

2008- 12, Ph.D. Supporting Supervisor: University of Cambridge Candidate Gillian Denny, Topic Embodied greenhouse gas emissions and urban agriculture.

Dr Helen Walker

My research interests lie in the history of Town Planning, particularly the impetus for establishment of the Garden City movement, National Parks, the emergence of community engagement in the planning of places. Other interests are the theoretical and political influences on the planning process, including regional government (and its demise). The historical development of urban areas, their design; history of architecture and urban form.

For further supervisory staff including cross-disciplinary options, please visit research staff on our research website.

Making an application

You will apply to the University of Brighton through our online application portal. When you do, you will require a research proposal, references, a personal statement and a record of your education.

You will be asked whether you have discussed your research proposal and your suitability for doctoral study with a member of the University of Brighton staff. We recommend that all applications are made with the collaboration of at least one potential supervisor. Approaches to potential supervisors can be made directly through the details available online. If you are unsure, please do contact the Doctoral College for advice.

Please visit our How to apply for a PhD page for detailed information.

Fees and funding

Funding

Undertaking research study will require university fees as well as support for your research activities and plans for subsistence during full or part-time study.

Funding sources include self-funding, funding by an employer or industrial partners; there are competitive funding opportunities available in most disciplines through, for example, our own university studentships or national (UK) research councils. International students may have options from either their home-based research funding organisations or may be eligible for some UK funds.

Learn more about the funding opportunities available to you.

Tuition fees academic year 2024–25

Standard fees are listed below, but may vary depending on subject area. Some subject areas may charge bench fees/consumables; this will be decided as part of any offer made. Fees for UK and international/EU students on full-time and part-time courses are likely to incur a small inflation rise each year of a research programme.

MPhil/PhD
	Full-time	Part-time
UK	£4,786	£2,393
International (including EU)	£15,900	N/A
International students registered in the School of Humanities and Social Science or in the School of Business and Law	£14,500	N/A

PhD by Publication
Full-time	Part-time
N/A	£2,393

Contact Brighton Doctoral College

To contact the Doctoral College at the University of Brighton we request an email in the first instance. Please visit our contact the Brighton Doctoral College page.

For supervisory contact, please see individual profile pages.