The Library: physicality and enactment (2012-16, PhD thesis)

Lead investigator: Hiral Patel

The purpose of the PhD research was to study adaptations of a building after it was constructed, and, in doing so, to explicate a novel conception of what a building is. Moving beyond the conception of buildings as fixed physical objects, a practice-based approach is adopted to conceptualise a building as a series of enactments. The practices of enacting a building illustrate how overly simplified design speculations are defied. Design strategies for adaptability of buildings often assume that adaptability resides in the physicality of the building. Instead, this research suggests that adaptability resides in the relations of the physical building with heterogonous entities. The building is, thus, a fluid object. The fluidity of buildings challenge scalar differentiations, and in turn reveal how a desk in the library is connected to the wider urban environment of the campus. Moreover, multiple versions of the library co-exist. Adaptations of a building are imbued with the ‘politics-of-what’ in prioritising one version of the library over other versions. The physicality of the building is manipulated in such politics. This has implications for renewal of building design practices to become sensitive to the ways in which multiple versions of a building may be politicised.

Exhibition

‘Enactments of the Library’, curated in the Library Building, University of Reading in November 2014 to mark the celebration of 50th anniversary of the building. The exhibition was part of University of Reading Alumni event. The exhibition provided an opportunity to actively participate in the community being researched. In making the exhibition and transgressing my identity from ‘observer’ to ‘participant’, I was able to gain new access to people, places and artefacts in the field. The exhibition provided an example of simultaneity of data collection, data analysis and demonstrating research output.