FOUR VIEWS OF SPATIAL CHANGE & STASIS: 4 fully-funded PhDs at SHU investigating: professional cultures of urban vacancy; arts led urban re-use; geographies of community self-help under austerity; Icelandic glacier fluctuations. Applications Deadline: 25 July 2019

“The superfluous is useful. Its use is to put life on the stage.”

Gernot Böhme (2017) Critique of Aesthetic Capitalism. Berlin: Mimesis  International.

I’m very pleased to be able to announce a fully funded PhD opportunity to work with me and colleagues at SHU looking at professional cultures of urban vacancy. Full details are set out below, followed by information about three other fully-funded PhD opportunities to work on projects with other colleagues across SHU’s interdisciplinary Department of the Natural and Built Environment, which is home to SHU’s geography, planning, architecture and built environment academics. In particular, there’s some exciting cross-over potential between the PhD project that I’m leading within our Real Estate team and the one being led by my colleague Christina Cerulli and her Architecture team colleagues. All four of our PhD posts will feature part-time ‘Graduate Teaching Assistant’ input in Years 2 and 3, giving a great opportunity to feed ongoing research into teaching, and to get valuable experience and day-to-day contact with our academics and students.

Here’s the descriptor for the ‘professional cultures of urban vacancy’ PhD project that I’m leading:

Wastes or in-waiting?: understanding professional cultures of setting-aside
urban property

Within the broad interdisciplinary field of urban studies, and in associated policy areas, there has been much celebration in recent years of the rise of ‘meanwhile uses’ for urban sites (land and/or buildings) as they pass between phases of more conventional, established utilisation. However, despite this, vacant urban sites still exist and little research has been undertaken to understand how site owners and their property advisers perceive the passage of their sites between uses, and in particular why they might still prefer (or at least be comfortable with) a site remaining empty and unused for a period.
The proposed study seeks to address this research deficit by investigating sites that appear to have fallen into disuse, and to understand the stories (and local logics) behind this apparent fate. Through case study-based research using primarily qualitative, interpretative methods (interviews, participant observation, focus groups, archival review) the study will build a rich insight into the way in which professional cultures of setting aside urban land are rationalised and implemented at specific sites.
It is envisaged that there will be a comparative dimension (i.e. looking at case studies from more than one property type) – but within this there is scope for the researcher to focus on types of property that are of particular interest / relevance. For example, the supervisory team have research interest in the life cycles of former mental asylums, abandoned military bunkers and former industrial sites, and the rise and fall of particular types and configurations of office accommodation.
Whilst a background in real estate is not mandatory for this position, the successful  applicant will need to be genuinely interested in, and able to build effective research relationships with, site owners, property professionals and their networks, in addition to showing a commitment to interpretative research methodologies.
The project will be supervised by Dr Luke Bennett (Reader in Space, Place & Law), Dr Carolyn Gibbeson (Senior Lecturer, Real Estate) and Dr Barry Haynes (Principal Lecturer, Real Estate).
Potential applicants are encouraged to contact Dr Luke Bennett  l.e.bennett@shu.ac.uk for further information prior to applying.

And here’s Cristina’s PhD project’s descriptor:

Spatial infrastructures and distributed agencies: East Street Arts as urban
activator 

In light of UK cities being increasingly dominated by large commercial developers and private interests (Cahill, 2001), (Minton, 2009), what role might arts and cultural organisations take in actively transforming cities according to different values and modes of action? How might they organise and operate not only to open up possibilities for artists, but to be an agent to stimulate possibilities for collective learning, community action and radical cultural practice? (Petrescu and Trogal, 2018), (Bohm, James, and Petrescu, 2018), (Traders, 2018). What are the tactics, strategies and roles they need take on and develop and the fields in which they must operate? (Brave New Alps, 2013, 2017), (Spatial Agency, 2017), (Gullino, Cerulli, and Seetzen, 2018).
The Subject Group of Architecture at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU_Architecture) invites applications from architects, diverse spatial practitioners, urbanists and designers to a design-led PhD programme to investigate these concerns, in  collaboration, and through active engagement with East Street Arts in Leeds (ESA).
The project draws on the research and teaching of SHU_Architecture and the current activities of the nationally active arts organisation ESA, to provide a stimulating practice-based research environment in which to actively explore the potential for arts organisations to play innovative and alternative roles in processes of urban transformation.
East Street Arts have developed a unique, also ecological, mode of practice as a civic arts organisation, operating a national network of art spaces, studios, community arts facilities and other tactics (Uglow, 2017), (Gee, 2017), (Thomas, 2018). They act in a diverse and complex way, and do not only support artists and their communities, but enact a particular form of urban development and transformation, which is supported by a range of spatial and creative tactics.
The candidate would be based between SHU_Architecture and East St Arts, so as to be able to draw on archival materials and practices of the arts organisation, and through the design-led PhD to explore and add to this archive in productive and performative ways.
The project will be supervised by: Dr Cristina Cerulli, Dr Julia Udall and Dr Sam Vardy.
Potential applicants are encouraged to contact Dr Cristina Cerulli C.Cerulli@shu.ac.uk for further information prior to applying.

For official information about these PhDs and their terms and conditions please refer carefully to SHU official sources (and check there for any updates prior to applying). The official advert for our four funded PhDs is here: 

https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/BTC027/phd-studentships-graduate-teaching-assistants-natural-and-built-environment

And here’s a copy of the ‘additional information’ document mentioned there – because its hard to find on the advert page (currently it only appears when you click “apply”):

Sheffield Hallam University

Natural and Built Environment Dept

PhD Studentship/Graduate Teaching Assistant bursaries

Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities

Duration: 3.5 years

Bursary £15,009 per annum

Closing date for applications: 12 noon 25th July 2019

The Department of Natural and Built Environment at Sheffield Hallam University intends to appoint PhD studentships (Graduate Teaching Assistants) on a three and a half year fixed term studentship from October 2019.

The studentship is for a period of three and a half years, subject to satisfactory progress, and will include full UK/EU tuition fees and an annual stipend of £15,009.
Graduate Teaching Assistant bursary holders will be expected to contribute to the resourcing of the student experience, either through teaching or some other form of student support. This forms part of the terms and conditions of the bursary and there is no additional payment for it. Currently enrolled students are not eligible to apply.
Applicants should hold a 1st or 2.1 honours degree in a related discipline. A Masters degree in a relevant subject area would be an advantage.
We are particularly interested in supervising projects in the following areas, and preference will be given to applicants with an interest in developing research in one of the areas set out below.

1) Spatial infrastructures and distributed agencies: East Street Arts as urban
activator 

In light of UK cities being increasingly dominated by large commercial developers and private interests (Cahill, 2001), (Minton, 2009), what role might arts and cultural organisations take in actively transforming cities according to different values and modes of action? How might they organise and operate not only to open up possibilities for artists, but to be an agent to stimulate possibilities for collective learning, community action and radical cultural practice? (Petrescu and Trogal, 2018), (Bohm, James, and Petrescu, 2018), (Traders, 2018). What are the tactics, strategies and roles they need take on and develop and the fields in which they must operate? (Brave New Alps, 2013, 2017), (Spatial Agency, 2017), (Gullino, Cerulli, and Seetzen, 2018).
The Subject Group of Architecture at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU_Architecture) invites applications from architects, diverse spatial practitioners, urbanists and designers to a design-led PhD programme to investigate these concerns, in collaboration, and through active engagement with East Street Arts in Leeds (ESA).
The project draws on the research and teaching of SHU_Architecture and the current activities of the nationally active arts organisation ESA, to provide a stimulating practice-based research environment in which to actively explore the potential for arts organisations to play innovative and alternative roles in processes of urban transformation.
East Street Arts have developed a unique, also ecological, mode of practice as a civic arts organisation, operating a national network of art spaces, studios, community arts facilities and other tactics (Uglow, 2017), (Gee, 2017), (Thomas, 2018). They act in a diverse and complex way, and do not only support artists and their communities, but enact a particular form of urban development and transformation, which is supported by a range of spatial and creative tactics.
The candidate would be based between SHU_Architecture and East St Arts, so as to be able to draw on archival materials and practices of the arts organisation, and through the design-led PhD to explore and add to this archive in productive and performative ways.
The project will be supervised by: Dr Cristina Cerulli, Dr Julia Udall and Dr Sam Vardy.
Potential applicants are encouraged to contact Dr Cristina Cerulli C.Cerulli@shu.ac.uk for further information prior to applying.

2) Wastes or in-waiting?: understanding professional cultures of setting-aside
urban property

Within the broad interdisciplinary field of urban studies, and in associated policy areas, there has been much celebration in recent years of the rise of ‘meanwhile uses’ for urban sites (land and/or buildings) as they pass between phases of more conventional, established utilisation. However, despite this, vacant urban sites still exist and little research has been undertaken to understand how site owners and their property advisers perceive the passage of their sites between uses, and in particular why they might still prefer (or at least be comfortable with) a site remaining empty and unused for a period.
The proposed study seeks to address this research deficit by investigating sites that appear to have fallen into disuse, and to understand the stories (and local logics) behind this apparent fate. Through case study-based research using primarily qualitative, interpretative methods (interviews, participant observation, focus groups, archival review) the study will build a rich insight into the way in which professional cultures of setting aside urban land are rationalised and implemented at specific sites.
It is envisaged that there will be a comparative dimension (i.e. looking at case studies from more than one property type) – but within this there is scope for the researcher to focus on types of property that are of particular interest / relevance. For example, the supervisory team have research interest in the life cycles of former mental asylums, abandoned military bunkers and former industrial sites, and the rise and fall of particular types and configurations of office accommodation.
Whilst a background in real estate is not mandatory for this position, the successful applicant will need to be genuinely interested in, and able to build effective research  relationships with, site owners, property professionals and their networks, in addition to showing a commitment to interpretative research methodologies.
The project will be supervised by Dr Luke Bennett (Reader in Space, Place & Law), Dr Carolyn Gibbeson (Senior Lecturer, Real Estate) and Dr Barry Haynes (Principal Lecturer, Real Estate).
Potential applicants are encouraged to contact Dr Luke Bennett l.e.bennett@shu.ac.uk for further information prior to applying.

3) Holocene climate and environmental change in SE Iceland.

Iceland is located in a critically important region for the climate of the northern hemisphere. Its location means that Icelandic climate is strongly influenced by circulation in the North Atlantic Ocean, which is highly sensitive to change and has the potential to act as a trigger for abrupt climate change. Despite SE Iceland being the focus of a large amount of research into glacier fluctuations since the Little Ice Age (which ended around 1890), surprisingly little is known about the climate of SE Iceland prior to this time.
This project will use multiproxy analysis of lake cores and glacial geomorphology to produce new reconciled records of Icelandic climate stretching back beyond modern records, which will be used to refine our understanding of ocean circulation in the North Atlantic, and potential sensitivities to rapid change.
The successful candidate will use established techniques such as Chironomid-based transfer functions, tephrochronology and radiocarbon dating to produce climate records from a number of high altitude lake basins in SE Iceland. Alongside these climate records, glacial geomorphological research of some of the key outlet glaciers in SE Iceland will be undertaken, potentially including Cosmogenic Radionuclide dating of boulders, to understand the interactions between climate changes and glacier response. Together, these strands will produce robust new records of the climate of SE Iceland stretching back past the instrumental record.
The project will be supervised by Dr Naomi Holmes, Dr Rob Storrar and Dr Jon Bridge.
Potential applicants are encouraged to contact Dr Naomi Holmes (n.holmes@shu.ac.uk 0114 225 3516) or Dr Rob Storrar (r.storrar@shu.ac.uk 0114
225 2798) for further information prior to applying.

4) Exploring the Geographies of Community Self-help in Times of Crisis and
Austerity: some case study evidence from England.

At a time of economic crisis and austerity, with over 1.5 million people in the UK living in destitution (JRF, 2018), a deeper understanding as to how these precarious realities are shaping the informal geographies of community self-help (i.e. the extent, rationales, social embeddedness, and barriers to participation) is extremely timely and important.
Harnessing a mixed-methodological framework to explore a range of material and emotional coping strategies, the research will consider how these are: (i) being weakened or dismantled (ii) acting as forms of resistance and resilience; (iii) underpinning new transformative forms of identity and engagement with others. The findings will address academic and policy implications that emerge when envisaging and enacting forms of community self-help “as a strategy for survival and a model for society” (Burns, et. al 2004: 6).
The project will be supervised by Dr. Richard White (Reader in Human Geography), Dr. Rob Hunt (Senior Lecturer in Social Policy) and Rob Stevens (Senior Lecturer in Geography and Planning).
Potential applicants are encouraged to contact Richard White (0114 225 2899 / Richard.White@shu.ac.uk)

Applicants with interests in other areas should consult our web pages:
https://www.shu.ac.uk/about-us/academic-departments/natural-and-built-environment for details of staff research interests in Natural and Built Environment and should consult the named contact before making an application.
For general enquiries please email fdsresearch@shu.ac.uk
For general information about research degrees, visit the Research website
https://www.shu.ac.uk/research/degrees
International applicants
International applicants please be aware that the bursary will cover only the Home/EU fee. The shortfall between the Home and Overseas fee, currently around £8,000 per year, must be covered by the student for the 3.5 year duration of the studentship.
We also have a mandatory English language requirement of IELTs 7, or equivalent language qualification. This qualification should have been taken within the last two years, with a score of at least 7 in all test areas.
Applying for a Studentship
Please complete an application form, available here: https://www.shu.ac.uk/studyhere/options/graduate-school/how-to-apply
Guidance on completion of your research proposal: Please submit a 2-page draft research proposal around your chosen area of interest along with your application form.
In the subject field of your e-mail, please write ‘Studentship Application’ and e-mail your completed application form and research proposal to fdsresearch@shu.ac.uk
Closing date for applications: 12 noon 25th July 2019. Late applications will not be accepted.
Please note, at this stage you only need to include the names and contact details for referees and do not have to request references.
Interviews are likely to take place during the week commencing 12th August 2019.
Shortlisted applicants must be available to attend an interview in person; there will be no Skype interviews.

Image references: Fairfield Inn (me); East Street Arts, https://eaststreetarts.org.uk/fluxcapacitor/were-looking-for-artists-for-our-spaces/

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SHU SPG 2019 conference – the comforts and discomforts of place, 10 July 2019

“…what have you in these houses? And what is it you guard with fastened doors…have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host and then a master?”

Khalil Gibran (1923) On Houses.

This free day-long event hosted by Sheffield Hallam University’s Space & Place Group at Kelham Island Industrial Museum on 10 July 2019 (as part of the University of Sheffield’s From Brooklyn Works to Brooklynism programme) brings together academics from across SHU, and beyond, to explore different ways of researching spaces and places, specifically from the perspective of comfort and discomfort. This event is a culmination of a series of workshops held at SHU over recent months, with an evolving set of speakers and attendees. This final event picks up on the themes from those earlier sessions:

• the awkward legacies of prior uses and configurations of spaces;
• the instrumentalisation and commercialisation of iconic places;
• different patterns of dwelling and experiencing private and public spaces; and
• the commodification (as a measure of efficiency and or exchange value) of space.

Intentionally the assembled presentations are eclectic and juxtaposed in a way intended to draw out connections between themes and perspectives which may not at first glance have much apparent connection. Woven through all of the presentations is a concern to acknowledge that places are often simultaneously comfortable and uncomfortable. Sometimes this duality is productive, sometimes it is painful. In either case, often it is necessary. In the afternoon we will be exploring whether (and if so how) how particular atmospheres and experiences can be designed into spaces and the events that occur within them.

The programme (including each speakers’ abstract) is set out below.

[Please note that the event is free to attend but that places (subject to availability) must be booked via Eventbrite here. Lunch will not be provided at this event: instead delegates will be invited to dine locally at one of the many pubs, cafes and restaurants now available in the Kelham Island district.]

PROGRAMME

09.00-9.30        ARRIVALS & REFRESHMENTS

9.30-9.40           WELCOME & INTRODUCTION

Luke Bennett, Reader, Natural & Built Environment (SHU)

‘Exploring the comforts and discomforts of place and dwelling’

9.40-10.40        SESSION 1: [DIS]COMFORT IN PUBLIC SPACE

09.40-10.00         Amanda Crawley Jackson, Senior Lecturer in French and Francophone Studies &  Faculty Director of Impact and External Engagement (Arts & Humanities)  (University of Sheffield)

“Restoring discomfort: using large format photography to unsettle the comfortable ordinariness of Syria’s Execution Squares”

Hrair Sarkissian (b. 1973, Damascus) is an Armenian-Syrian artist working primarily in the medium of photography.  He is perhaps best known for his 2008 series, Execution Squares, in which he explores the sites of public hangings that traumatised his childhood. In this paper, I’ll consider Execution Squares in the context of my current work on post-traumatic landscapes, focusing on the ways in which these large format photographs of ostensibly ordinary public squares in Damascus, Aleppo and Latakia betray something of the violence that has taken place there. With reference to Georges Didi-Huberman’s work on visibility and visuality, I will make the case that images – and landscapes – such as these exhort us to see differently. Finally, I will argue that  Sarkissian’s work, as a complex meditation on time, plasticity and absence, affords a critical prism through which to interrogate the ways in which the past survives in the present. 

10.00-10.20         Elaine Speight, Research Fellow, ‘In Certain Places’ (UCLAN)

“Making a boob of it: Some thoughts about breastfeeding in public”

This short talk will discuss ideas of comfort and discomfort in relation to the maternal body, through a focus upon the politics and practicalities of breastfeeding in public. As evident from the recent social media furore surrounding Meghan Markle’s ‘baby bump habit’, the ways in which maternal bodies are presented and performed is an ongoing cultural concern. As ‘a leaking, secreting embodied Other’ (Longhurst 2001), the breastfeeding body is a specific source of anxiety, particularly when encountered within supposedly ordered public spaces. Drawing upon my recent experience of becoming a mother, I will examine some of the physical challenges of breastfeeding outside of the home, as well as the social unease it provokes. Touching on ideas of exhibitionism/discretion and the maternal/sexual, I will discuss how the act of breastfeeding disrupts and is disciplined by existing spatial norms, and raises the question ‘who has the right to be comfortable in public?’

10.20-10.40         Ian Whiteside, Senior Lecturer, Events Management (SHU)

“Creating visitor experience in the National Trust”

A visit, like an event, is time out of the everyday. Staff at National Trust properties welcome visitors, except at the Workhouse where they make them uncomfortable as part of the experience. Using the Workhouse at Southwell, Nottinghamshire and Belton House, Lincolnshire as case studies this paper looks at visitor experience in terms of making visitors comfortable or setting an atmosphere of unease. The Workhouse at Southwell is owned and managed by the National Trust and is the most complete workhouse building still existing in Britain. Belton House is the quintessential English Country house and one of the National Trust’s most popular properties. Through a series of conversations, with volunteers and staff, issues including the visitor experience and reasons to visit and return (or not) are discussed and then analysed with reference to the work of Lovell (2018), Boje (2001) and Dorst (1989). This paper, based on empirical data, will look at issues of welcoming visitors, or not.

10.40-10.45      COMFORT BREAK

10.45-11.45      SESSION 2: WARM & WELL?

10.45-11.05         Aimee Ambrose, Reader, Centre for Regional Economic & Social Research (SHU) & Graeme Sherriff, Research Fellow, School of Health & Society (University of Salford)

“Comfort and discomfort in ‘low-energy’ homes in the increasingly inhospitable climate of South Australia”

The energy performance of the housing sector is an important contemporary challenge in the context of environmental constraints such as climate change and social issues such as fuel poverty and social inclusion. This is not a purely technical issue: how occupants live in and negotiate comfort impacts upon to what extent energy efficiency goals can be achieved and this has implications for their quality of life. This paper draws on interviews with residents of the Lochiel Park Green Village in South Australia who have moved into purpose built low energy homes. Using an oral history approach to situate experiences of energy within individual housing histories in order to better understand the evolving relationship between the occupant and the building. Within the context of debates around adaptive comfort practices, this innovative methods reveals that, despite the expectations of some residents, moving to a ‘low-energy’ home has reduced rather than eliminated their active involvement in maintaining a thermally comfortable environment.

11.05-11.25         Michael Roskams, Workplace & Wellbeing Analyst, Technical facilities Management (Mitie plc)

“Can smart sensors support employees’ physical and psychological comfort in the workplace environment?”

Environmental discomfort is rife in the modern workplace environment and can lead to ill health and unproductive work. In this presentation, I will discuss my PhD research, which explores the relationship between environmental comfort, wellbeing, and productivity. The presentation will focus on the partnership with facilities management Mitie, who are pioneering the use of wireless environmental sensors to monitor key parameters of the physical environment in real time. I will discuss the strengths and the limitations of this technology-led approach, and will also discuss the importance of recognising psychological comfort as well as physical comfort.

11.25-11.45         Becky Shaw, Reader, Fine Art (SHU) and Frances Williams, PhD student (MMU)

“Class, Cool and Care: The Maggie’s centre and the discomfort of criticising the ‘Well-being’ aesthetic”

The Maggie’s Centre, Manchester, is seen as an exemplary model for the value of arts in healthcare- cool architect designed, displaying art from The Whitworth Collection, using Orla Keilly towels and hand-made raku mugs, with a stylish wild allotment-style garden and a non-clinical patient engagement format. As part of a nascent research group (Critical Arts for Health) six artists and academics visited Maggie’s and spent time thinking about the particular expression of well-being at work. During our visit we questioned: why the ingredients of the ‘well-being’ aesthetic are so often predictable and how, together, they perform a familiar construct of good taste; the extent to which this spatial and material language delivers care, comfort and is inclusive; and the extent to which the aesthetic language is designed to appeal to patients or to function rhetorically for private sponsors- or if both, how does this intertwine? At the same time our position as critics was deeply uncomfortable, partly because to criticise Maggie’s feels sacrilegious as it is so established as the pinnacle of good cancer care, but also because it caused us to reflect on the distance and privilege of a critical position. This brought to life the complexity of trying to think critically about the often warm and cosy terrain of arts in health.

11.45-12.00      REFRESHMENTS

12.00-1.00        SESSION 3: ARE WE SITTING COMFORTABLY?

12.00-12.20         Esther Johnson, Professor, Film & Media Arts (SHU)

“Alone Together, the Social Life of Benches”

Esther will introduce and screen her film Alone Together, the Social Life of Benches. Through the experiential capacity of film via a series of oral testimonies and carefully composed portraits, the work explores how individuals and groups spend time in two distinctive London public spaces. Revolving around the micro-space of the humble bench, the film incorporates contributions from a diverse range of visitors. These testimonies highlight themes such as the psychological feeling of being in a space, the rhythm and flow of visitors to a place, and the importance of design for everyday street furniture. The film acts like a stranger who joins you on a bench to ‘watch the world go by’, and to break the ice by starting a conversation with their fellow bench user. Made whilst Esther was co-investigator on an AHRC Connected Communities innovation project, The Un-Sociable Bench, and other urban micro-territories of encounter and intimidation.

 http://blanchepictures.com/alone-together

 12.20-12.40         James Corazzo, Principal Lecturer, Graphic Design (SHU)

“Sofa Pedagogy”

This talk will explore the comforts and discomforts of the educational design studio through a study of the squashy object par excellence – a sofa. To anybody familiar with studio environments (professional or educational), a sofa is an unremarkable presence. Indeed, contemporary HE learning spaces are now replete with hub/break-out/informal spaces, often signalled by the judicious use of colour and soft furnishings and evangelised for their apparent capacity to enable collaboration, innovation and flexibility. Eschewing such causal and monochromatic accounts of learning spaces, I will argue the sofa, in this particular studio setting, is a surprisingly mutable object affording a variety of encounters and paradoxical models of occupation: hard/soft, formal/informal, intimate/indifferent, teaching/not teaching. Through talk and draw interviews with tutors and observation, I will show the sofa in this studio is not just a comfortable place to sit, but itself a significant pedagogic actor.

12.40-1.00           Phil Crowther, Reader – Events Management (SHU)

“The comforts and discomforts of business executives sleeping with the homeless on a city’s streets for a night”

The intentionality of charity events (from the charities perspective) is – it can be proposed – to design meaningful experiences to either provoke (or consolidate) behaviour change in participants; often related to donations or advocacy.  Facilitating such experiences that participants perceive as meaningful and thus generate emotional connection underlying behaviour change is – from an experience design perspective – challenging.  We live in an age of ‘attention scarcity’ (and experience overkill) and therefore to achieve such an outcome, an appreciation of the persona of attendee, linked to empathy mapping, is pivotal.  In this presentation I will juxtapose the archetypal charity experience, with all of its comforts, with the discomforts of a charity sleep out event in Sheffield.   A fascinating lens through which to unpick the purposeful design of discomforting experiences.

1.00-1.10              Luke Bennett & Phil Crowther

Wrap-up for the morning, tasking for the lunchtime exploration of Kelham Island’s experiencescapes and an outline for the afternoon’s session

1.15-2.30           LUNCH

NB: no lunch will be provided. Delegates will be invited to eat at one of the local pubs, cafes, restaurants and to take the opportunity there to analyse how the experience offered there is staged and its atmosphere of comfort/discomfort engineered.

2.30-3.30           SESSION 4: ANALYSING THE COMFORTS AND DISCOMFORTS OF LUNCH

A facilitated discussion of delegates’ lunchtime explorations of local experiencescapes. This will showcase the variety of disciplinary perspectives upon – and varied methodologies for – ‘reading’ places and their atmospheres.

3.30-3.50           REFRESHMENTS

3.50-4.50           SESSION 5: SHU ‘EXPERIENCESCAPES CLUSTER’ INAUGRAL MEETING

The ‘Experiencescape research cluster’ has very recently been formed and in its very early stages of capitalising upon the wideranging engagements of SHU academics across psychology, sociology, hospitality, tourism, events, marketing, architecture, design, media and communications, lawyers and real estate in the study, design and critiquing of ‘experiencescaping’. The overarching interest of the cluster is the purposeful facilitation of physical and virtual spaces in order to stimulate a positive mental response from their consumer; underpinning desired actions or behaviours in the short term, and longer-term patronage and advocacy. Experience design is prevalent, and a topic ripe for examination, and the cluster seeks to deepen collaborative links both within the university, but also with industry partners engaged in the production of experiencescapes; retail, visitor attractions, stadia, city / town centres, events, and more. This discussion will – developing the themes of today’s earlier sessions – present some early ideas about the cluster and most importantly seek colleagues views on how the cluster can prosper.

(NB: all delegates are welcome to participate in this, and whether SHU staff or otherwise).

 4.50-5.00           CLOSING REMARKS – Luke Bennett & Phil Crowther

 

 

Image Source: Still from Esther Johnson’s 2015 film, Alone Together, the Social Life of Benches