The Dissertation

A Guide for Architecture Students

Iain Borden, Katerina Ruedi Ray

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317746959
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

The Dissertation is one of the most demanding yet potentially most stimulating components of an architectural course. This classic text provides a complete guide to what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and what the major pitfalls are.

This is a comprehensive guide to all that an architecture student might need to know about undertaking the dissertation. The book provides a plain guide through the whole process of starting, writing, preparing and submitting a dissertation with minimum stress and frustration.

The third edition has been revised throughout to bring the text completely up-to-date for a new generation of students. Crucially, five new and complete dissertations demonstrate and exemplify all the advice and issues raised in the main text. These dissertations are on subjects from the UK, USA, Europe and Asia and offer remarkable insights into how to get it just right.

1    Introduction

Why Write a Dissertation?

As a student of architecture, the major part of your education is always going to be the design of buildings as executed through drawings, models, digital images, prototyping and other kinds of visual representation. Together with the workspace of the architectural studio, the presentation of designs followed by a challenging crit or jury, and the submission of a carefully wrought portfolio are undoubtedly the main elements of an architectural education.

Yet as anyone who has ever tried to explain architecture quickly realizes, architecture is not only about images and models. Words, too, are an integral part of what architecture is all about. Architecture is textual as well as visual and spatial. Most obviously, words are a necessary explanation of what kind of architecture is referred to in drawings and models, and if you don’t believe that words are essential, try explaining your designs without speaking at all. Words are also a way of exploring new territories, new ideas, new kinds of architecture – from the Roman architectural theorist Vitruvius to present day bloggers such as Geoff Manaugh, some of the most important and influential works of architecture have been books and other kinds of writing.¹ Indeed, without these words there would be no buildings, no architects and no architectural study.

A dissertation is architecture made of words. It is a way of conceiving and producing architecture through sentences, paragraphs and considered argument. It is an arena in which to alternatively explain, explore, challenge, theorize or imagine architecture. A dissertation can therefore be about many different kinds of subject, from the study of the oeuvre of a single architect to tentative speculation about the relation, for example, between shoe design and architectural culture. Most importantly, though, it is a place where, just as in your architectural designs, you have the opportunity not only to learn about architecture but also make a contribution to what we all think about it; the architectural dissertation is your chance to explore what you believe and aspire to, and to present those thoughts to others.

One other thing. A dissertation is a common requirement of many professional architectural courses worldwide, including the vast majority of the various ARB/RIBA Part 1 and Part 2 accredited programmes in the United Kingdom and some professional MArch programmes in the USA. In the UK, universities also often require you to pass your dissertation independently of your design and other architectural studies – no dissertation, no degree! The dissertation can therefore be part of the requirement for all those seeking accreditation or licensing from or membership of their appropriate professional body, such as the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB), National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) and the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in the USA, or the Architects Registration Board (ARB) and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in the UK, or the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) in Australia. If no dissertation means no degree, then it can also mean no professional qualification. For those wanting to be professional architects, doing the dissertation is in many countries not a matter of choice.

The Guidebook

This guidebook provides a guide to the whole process of starting, writing, preparing and submitting a dissertation. It also offers some advice on what to do after the dissertation. It explains carefully what to do, how to do it, when to do it and what the major pitfalls are to avoid. Each university and architectural programme does, of course, have its own rules and requirements, and you are strongly advised to check everything said here with what your own institution expects. Nonetheless, if you follow the guidance in this book, and if you add to it your own intelligent and rigorous efforts, you should go on to produce a dissertation of the best possible standard. It is also aimed directly at students undertaking a professionally oriented architecture degree, and will also be of most use to those who are undertaking a masters-level dissertation in architectural history and theory or related subject. It is not, however, directly aimed at those under an MPhil or PhD research degree, who will often wish to consider the methodological nature of their research in considerably more detail than is discussed in this publication.

The book, following this introduction, is divided into six more chapters. These follow the general chronological procedure by which a dissertation is normally undertaken.

Chapter 2 (Starting) describes what to do when first beginning to work on a dissertation. It explains what kind of study a dissertation is, how to select and assess a potential dissertation subject and how to choose a supervisor to work with. It also explains the importance of writing a proposal.

Chapter 3 (Researching) identifies what research is, and briefly outlines some of the main kinds of approach that architectural historians and theorists have adopted in order to work within the discipline. On a more practical note, this chapter also explains what you actually have to do in order to research an architectural dissertation: research techniques, working methods, libraries and archives are all covered. A special section, extended in this edition, deals with the internet and other digital resources, all of which offer particular opportunities and challenges for the architectural student.

Chapter 4 (Writing) deals with the processes of writing a dissertation, and how to go from the blank sheet of paper or bare screen to a complete first draft. Advice on how to organize and structure a dissertation (including what to include in an ‘Introduction’ and ‘Conclusion’) is complemented with tips on working methods, illustrations, referencing, bibliographies, how to avoid plagiarism, submitting a draft and the use of computers. This chapter also suggests how you might change the format of a dissertation into a multimedia or other non-conventional form of submission – indeed, these are kinds of dissertation which have recently been the subject of much discussion, development and innovation.

Chapter 5 (Presenting) covers the important process of finishing off, printing and binding a dissertation, and generally making sure that it looks as good as possible while meeting all scholarly requirements. This chapter also explains how tutors commonly assess dissertations.

Chapter 6 (Afterwards) moves into the future, when the dissertation has been submitted and assessed. If you have done very well, you may want to consider further study or research in this field, and some suggestions are made about the kinds of courses which you might consider. You may also want to prepare your dissertation for publication, and similar suggestions are made as to how you could do this. This chapter also offers some ‘troubleshooting’ advice if you are faced with serious difficulties during the production of your dissertation or if you disagree with the result that you have been given.

In Chapter 7 (Dissertation Examples) you will also find numerous examples of prize-winning dissertations previously completed by architecture students. In this new edition of this book, we focus on some of the very best work of all, showing a variety of examples of student work as they have been published in prestigious, internationally regarded academic journals of architecture.

Reference

1  Vitruvius, The Ten Books on Architecture (New York: Dover, 1960); and Geoff Manaugh, Bldgblog Book: Architectural Conjecture, Urban Speculation, Landscape Futures (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2009).

2 Starting

What is a Dissertation?

The first thing you need to know about a dissertation is what it is not. Unless you are undertaking a PhD, your dissertation is not going to be like a book, for reasons of time as much as anything else. Consider for one moment that a typical book is commonly something about 80,000 to 100,000 words in length, and can easily take three years or more to write and produce – a PhD is about the same. By contrast, a thesis for an MPhil is typically around 40,000 words, and takes two years to complete, while a dissertation for a graduate architectural course in the USA or a postgraduate architectural course in the UK can be anything from 5,000 to 25,000 words. In practice, an architectural dissertation is often only around 10,000 words (as with most of the details in this book, you should always check the specific requirements of your own institution), and has normally to be completed within one academic year, or nine months. Many students therefore have about the same space and time available as a more experienced author would have to write a single book chapter, or a long article in an academic journal. This situation is even more complex in that many universities will now also accept dissertations which make extensive use of visual material, with some appropriate amendments then being made to the overall number of words.

The dissertation is not, therefore, the appropriate place to try to sum up everything that you have ever thought or believed about architecture – you simply do not have the time, or the number of words, or the number of images at your disposal to cram everything in. Instead, the dissertation is a place in which to enquire into an architectural subject which is of interest to yourself. It is a conscious and deliberate attempt to identify, define, explore and articulate a subject of some relevance both to the architectural discourse and to your own development as an architectural designer and thinker.

A dissertation is, then, a kind of staging post – an opportunity to step outside the studio or to straddle between studio and other areas of architectural exploration, and to focus for a relatively short period of time on a particular aspect of architecture that appeals to you, and which you think would be of benefit when thinking about what architecture is now and might become in the future.

Selecting a Dissertation Subject

One of the biggest problems facing any architecture student when starting a dissertation is what subject they should choose to study. In the past, some schools of architecture have had very specific guidance on this matter, such as the stipulation that the dissertation must be about a single building by a well-known architect. However, such requirements are nowadays quite unusual, and today most architecture schools will allow just about any subject as long as it has some bearing on architecture. You can, for example, get some kind of idea of the potential range of subjects by looking at the “Dissertations” section of the website for the RIBA President’s Medals Students Awards (www.presidentsmedals.com), which includes descriptions of dissertation work on individual architects such as Mies van der Rohe, Sverre Fehn and Peter Zumthor, general thematics such as ecology, political power and public grief, individual buildings such as the Braun A.G. Factory, Casa Malaparte and the Buyukada Museum, specific aspects of architectural theory from skew bridges and Piranesian perspective to fictional imaginations, architecture in countries as varied as Chile, Dubai, Lebanon, Northern Ireland and Turkey, and time periods from ancient Rome to the Baroque to the present day.

Evidently the options are very wide indeed, and to begin, then, you have to locate a subject which you want to explore and which you can begin to talk about. The first thing you need to realize here is that, unlike many other essay assignments that you may have been given, your tutor is not going to tell you what to do. Rather, the whole point of the dissertation is that you, yourself, should come up with a topic.

Where, then, might you locate that subject? The following are several places where you might look.

Yourself

What are your interests in architecture? One of the easy mistakes to make about architecture is for you to assume that what you are interested in is also what interests everyone else. Consequently, you might erroneously assume that what you know about architecture is already understood by everyone else, and thus that you should not write a dissertation about it. This is rarely the case. Indeed, one of the great joys about architecture is that it is capable of being thought about in a near-infinite number of ways. So have faith in the fact that what you are interested in will no doubt be shared by some but not all others, and this is your opportunity to convince everyone else of its importance to architecture. The dissertation is, after all, a place of individual work, so give vent to your own obsessions, preoccupations and personal strengths.

How, then, can you identify your own interests? One of the simplest things you can do is to try writing down a few key interests: The way buildings weather over time? The idea of memory? The different kinds of people who inhabit architecture? Advanced-technological or prototyping systems? Political meanings of buildings? The interrelation between word and images? A particular architect’s life and work? Have a kind of brainstorming session with yourself and see what you come up with. It is also a very good idea to talk to some friends who are in the same position and ask them to tell you what they think you are interested in, and vice versa.

Your Portfolio

The portfolio you have produced in the design studio over the years is in many ways a record of yourself, your architectural thoughts and how they have developed. Get out those designs and ask what the key themes are within them. Alternatively, what is absent from these projects but which you might like to spend some time thinking about?

One particular question that you may want to bear in mind is the connection between your design work and your dissertation subject. For some students, the dissertation is an opportunity to take a theme from their designs and to explore this in great depth in the dissertation. For others, the reverse is true, and the dissertation is seen as an opportunity to do something entirely divorced from the studio which may only later inform design work, or may remain entirely independent of it. For most, it is probably somewhere in between these two extremes – and many students therefore pick something related to their architectural design interests, but without making it a slave to these studio projects. By the way, although most architecture schools have very broad definitions of an acceptable dissertation, the one kind of subject that many do entirely ban is the dissertation about yourself: writing directly solely about your own design work is not normally acceptable. However, some of the developments in those dissertation which artfully blend both design-based and word-based work may relate very strongly indeed to the student’s own studio work. The essential thing to bear in mind here is that the word-based work should not be simply a commentary on your design-based work, and nor should the...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-title Page
• Front-Other Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table Of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Starting
• 3 Researching
• 4 Writing
• 5 Presenting
• 6 Afterwards
• 7 Dissertation Examples
• Dissertation Authors
• Index