The aim of the research centre will be to conduct interdisciplinary and integrated research by design concerning questions concerning the design, making and consequences of the human made and more specifically the built environment.
The centre is organized as part of AHOs Institute of Architecture and is directed by professor Michael Hensel.
Establishing strategic research environments
This is the fourth research centre AHO has under development, as an addition and strengthening of the research activities taking place at AHOs four academic institutes. The other three include The Oslo Centre for Critical Architecture Studies (OCCAS), Centre for Design Research (IxD), and Centre for Urban Studies.
In his opening speech, rector Karl Otto Ellefsen explained why AHO now chooses to establish research centres as a means to create sustainable research environments in selected fields that are given priority. In addition, the centres are meant to be channels for international cooperation, building research based networks with stamina and stability. In sum, he claimed, “the research centres are means to make our research strategies visible, notable and known, both inside our own academic environment and internationally”.
- Read rector Karl Otto Ellefsens welcoming speech (pdf)
Theory and practice of construction
In line with this strategy, the new Centre for Architecture and Tectonics aims to emphasize research in the theory and practice of construction, implying emphasis on scaled and full-scale construction as a means to generate knowledge and reliable empirical data in ways that everyday practice and general industries involved in the making of the built environment cannot feasibly undertake. Due to the latter, the centre will seek to collaborate extensively with the practices and industries involved in the making of the built environment.
As part of the inauguration of the centre, and in order to identify research areas for architecture from an interdisciplinary and integrative perspective, AHO on Friday April 29th invited colleagues in the construction and building industry as well as students and faculty to a public one-day symposium.
In the symposium, invited experts discussed relevant research areas pertaining to the built environment, and gave an outlook on what a research centre for Architecture and Tectonics ought to be doing.
Lecturers included Prof. Dr. David Leatherbarrow (University of Pennsylvania), Siv Stangeland and Richard Kropf (Helen & Hard, Stavanger), Marianne Sætre (Snøhetta), Prof. Christoph Gengnagel (a.k.a.ingenieure and UdK Berlin), Guillem Barrault Bover (BOMA, Barcelona), Prof. Dr. Julian Vincent, (University of Bath) and Prof. Dr. Richard Bonser (University of Reading).
From AHO, the symposium also included prof. Michael Hensel, head of institute Børre Skodvin, prof. Bjørn Sandaker, associate prof. Marius Nygaard, assistant prof. Søren S. Sørensen and reseach fellow Defne S. Hensel.
The symposium also included the opening of the exhibition GEOMETRY + MATERIAL + FORCES by BOMA in AHOs Gallery, presenting the Catalan structure consultant firm BOMA. The exhibition lasts until May 13th, 2011.