It turns out that I am required to submit a 1000-word ‘research proposal’ to get onto the DArch programme, in addition to re-visiting the application form – this time with the benefit of guidance notes. So I rephrase my ‘personal statement’ with less description of my professional background and more of my personal motivation for wishing to embark upon the course:
“My wish to join the DArch programme relates to my background as a socially committed architect/teacher: my proposed research would enable me to draw together and round off several of the threads that I have picked up at different points through my career, in addition to pointing a way forward for the NTU School of Architecture which I joined in 2010. The need for this research was identified in a recent meeting of the local architectural practice that I help run: in developing a strategic plan for securing larger-scale projects, my co-directors have suggested they feel constrained by our commitment to community engagement, on the grounds that it is poorly funded and heavily dependent upon the occasional, short-term efforts of well-meaning amateurs and inconsistent volunteers (giving our practice a reputation for being outside the mainstream of the profession). I take the view, by contrast, that involvement in community development activities in accordance with our social sustainability ethos ought to operate to our commercial advantage (being a feature that helps give our firm its distinctive identity), but we know neither how to proceed nor even whether we should try.
My proposed Professional Doctorate, accordingly, would examine how community engagement might be reconcilable with the commercial aspirations of a small architectural practice - using my own firm as a test-bed for experimentation with different approaches. While I would like to believe that my research could lay foundations for a wholly new modus operandi for socially conscious architectural practices, I expect in reality to achieve at least some effect upon architectural education (with significant ramifications as I influence successive generations of graduates to enter the profession with a commitment to social sustainability). In parallel with – and supported by – my research accordingly, I would seek gradually to modify the character of the architecture programmes we offer at NTU – moving from emphasis upon architecture as a form of art practice (centred around an almost a-political fascination with phenomenology), towards a stronger sense of responsiveness to social context (requiring the teaching of techniques for successful community engagement). In due course, I anticipate, knowledge and skills related to social sustainability will become embedded in the prescribed curriculum for all UK Schools of Architecture: I would wish to be associated with such an important (and long overdue) development, and see the DArch as an opportunity to achieve this ambition.”
The discipline of writing the above has been helpful in enabling me to respond to the first ‘activity’ in a book I’ve started reading – Potter, S. ed. (2002). Doing Postgraduate Research. London: Sage Publications, in which chapter 2 (“Getting Going’) demands first a description of motivations. When I first read this, I had felt inclined to skip the exercise on the grounds that – at the age of 61 – outcomes in terms either of results or of expertise gained are not of interest to me (I’m not doing this for the benefit of my CV!).