PhD Courses 2027

Language

English

Lecturer(s)

Isak Worre Foged and Phil Ayres                                                               

Course description

Materials are an embedded part of design thinking, design experiments and design making, both in academia and industry. They also form a central leverage point in the transition to a sustainable society, and a core aspect of how we develop experiential phenomena for our design targets.

We engage with materials constantly, but how do we study materials, material processes and material representations in architecture and design research?
 
This course focuses on illustrating and debating research strategies and methods for material studies in architecture and design. This implicates the forming of a dual research platform of both quantitative and qualitative investigations that enable new insights across the design scales.

The course is structured around two activities: 
1) A course preparation period, where participants review literature and develop assignments, 
2) a mixedseminar/workshop where invited speakers and participating PhD students will present and discuss research approaches, followed by a workshop on how to advance the methodological approaches of the student specific projects

Dates

TBA

Venue

On Campus

ECTS

3

Application deadline

TBA via via https://katalog.kglakademi.dk/phdtilmeld.php

Language

English

Lecturer(s)

Olga Popovic Larsen and Johan Mottelson

Other Lecturer(s)

TBA                                                            

Course description

This course is for PhD candidates in their final year and focuses on finalizing the thesis and preparing for successful submission and public defence.

With a spectrum of different and often braod approaches, methods, theoretical contexts, and the wealth of different kinds of knowledge developed through the research project, PhD candidates are faced with challenging decisions on the presentationand defence of the thesis.

The course addresses:
• Framing and structuring the dissertation
• A monograph vis-a-vis article-based thesis
• Situating academic practices within the specificproject
• Identification and presentation of the most important knowledge contributions
• Praparing for the defence of the thesis

The PhD course will span three weeks, with three full 
days of activities with preparation in between.

Timeschedule:

Week 1 - Defining the thematic scope
One full day of PhD project presentations by candidates, followed by discussions in small groups and in plenum. PhD candidates will present and refletct on their own work to provide an overview of the thematic, methodological and epistemic scope of each project.
A recently finished PhD candidate will provide a presentation about how to structure the PhD project,followed by a discussion about structuring a PhD thesis.

Task for the following week: preparing a draft structure of own PhD project.

Week 2- Structuring the PhD thesis
One full day of presentations by candidates focusing on structuring the PhD thesis followed by discussions in small groups and in plenum.
A recently finished PhD candidate will provide a presentation about how to prepare for the oral PhD defence, followed by a discussion about preparing the defence.

Task for final week: preparing a draft presentation and strategy for defence of own PhD project.

Week 3 - Preparing the defence
One full day of presentations by candidates focusing on their preparations of the defence of their own PhD project, followed by discussions in small groups and in plenum.
Prior to the course, participants enrolled in the course will be asked to send a short summary of the material produced throughout the PhD project and intended to be included in the PhD thesis. This includes publications, practice work, artistic research, and other outputs.

Course outcomes: a clearer academic understanding of how to structure, present and defend a PhD project, developed for the participant’s own PhD project.

Dates

TBA

Venue 

Physical attendance at the Royal Danish Academy –
Campus Holmen

ECTS

3

Application deadline

TBA via via https://katalog.kglakademi.dk/phdtilmeld.php

Language

English

Lecturer

Kirsten Marie Raahauge

Other Lecturers

Alison Clarke, Masa Kaijita, Roberta Cassi                                                        

Course description

The making and shaping of the human environments are never value neutral. Shaping the life conditions for humans, design, architecture, and planning creates the material and spatial conditions under which humans re-reproduce values, norms, social relations and cultural contexts. To design something is to create the fertile grounds for human practices and activities; design both reflects and transforms its societal context.
Either this relationship is overlooked, or it is simply presented as an a-priori positive relationship. Design and normativity are inseparable as are the positive and negative outcomes for humans within such frames.
 

The course consists of the following core elements:

• Seminar with an Excursion & series of short introductory lectures and debates, involving the course tutors
• Full-day Study Circle with presentations of texts bythe students and discussions of themes and texts in plenary.
• Focused Seminar with PhD student presentations, commented on by Alison J. Clarke and the course
•  Peer-to Peer Feedback focused session in which
  doctoral students exchange ideas on methodological, theoretical approaches and content in groups
  with presentation of outcomes.

The making and shaping of the human environment is never value-neutral. Design, architecture and planning create the material and spatial conditions under which humans re-reproduce values, norms, social relations, and cultural contexts. To design something is to create the fertile grounds for human practices and activities; design both reflects and transforms its societal context. Often this symbiotic relationship is entirely overlooked, or it is simply presented as an a priori positive relationship. Design and normativity are inseparable, as are the positive and negative outcomes for humans operating within such frameworks.

The course has three levels: Firstly, it offers an operational framing of critical-creative theories and concepts from the humanities, social sciences, and critical design thinking. Secondly, there are illustrated case studies drawn from the tutors’ research encompassing approaches ranging from design studies, design anthropology, interior and domestic design, to critical disability studies. Thirdly, the course requires participants to present their research projects within the conceptual framing of 'design and normativity' with expert feedback from the course tutors

Dates

TBA

Venue

TBD:

Physical attendance/online
Or
Physical attendance only

ECTS

3

Application deadline

TBA via https://katalog.kglakademi.dk/phdtilmeld.php

Language

English

Lecturer(s)

Runa Johannessen, Associate Professor IABL
Guro Sollid, Associate Professor IABL                                                                   

Course description

This PhD course explores fieldwork as a critical and creative methodological approach in architectural research. Moving beyond conventional site analysis, it examines how architects engage with environments, communities, and material contexts through perspectives informed by feminist ecology and situated reflective and artistic practices.

The course introduces theoretical frameworks for fieldwork epistemologies in architecture and the spatial disciplines. Drawing on feminist ecological thought, it emphasizes relational understandings of space and the interdependence between humans, non-humans, and environments. Concepts such as situated knowledge, positionality, and ethics of care guide reflections on how researchers operate in the field and how knowledge emerges through specific social, political, and ecological relations. The course also critically examines how “the field” is often contested, for instance when landscapes and built environments are shaped by extractive practices, historical inequalities, and asymmetries of power.

Through seminars, methodological discussions, and field-based exercises, participants will explore qualitative, artistic and experimental research methods including observation, mapping, ethnographic engagement, and visual documentation.

Participants will develop and reflect on fieldwork strategies relevant to their own doctoral research while addressing the ethical and political implications of situated architectural research.

Dates

TBA

Venue

Physical attendance/online

ECTS

3

Application deadline

TBA via https://katalog.kglakademi.dk/phdtilmeld.php

Language

English

Lecturer(s)

Connie Svabo, professor of STEM Education and Science Communication, SDU
Silje Kamille Friis, Associate professor in Design Methodology, The Royal Academy  

Other Lecturer(s)

Kellie Dunn, University of Copenhagen, Denmark                                                                  

Course description

This course offers introductions to, exercises in and reflections on the methodological approaches of practice–based research with a particular focus on arts–
and design-based research.

A common challenge in academic research is how to mitigate between various forms of knowing. How may practice-based knowing be accounted for academically? This question addresses the relationship between research and practice - and is relevant for practitioner-researchers from across a range of fields: artists, designers, communication professionals, journalists, administrators, teachers, nurses etc.

The course introduces a cluster of methodologies which all interrogate doing in research. These methodologies are arts-based research, design research, research-creation, action research, performance as research and practice as research - and they all explore the entanglements of making, doing, and knowing in academic work.

From this broad contextualization, the course zooms in on arts- and design-based methodologies and provides each participant with the opportunity to work tangibly and concretely with his or her own practice as research, for instance by visualizing, drawing, designing, embodying, modelling, and writing. Exercises will be tangible and concrete, and we will employ props such as photographs, visual and physical artefacts in processes of making and translating knowledge.

Students will, among other things, gain insights into the methodologies of practice–based research, be capable of analysing and discussing the specific advantages and challenges of applying practice–based research approaches in a PhD project and, develop an understanding of and strategies for how practical experience can be integrated into academic knowledge production.

Dates

TBA

Venue

Physical attendance at campus TBA

ECTS

3

Application deadline

TBA via https://katalog.kglakademi.dk/phdtilmeld.php

Language

English

Lecturer(s)

Katja Bülow & Louise Grønlund                                                                    

Course description

The topic of this PhD-course is darkness – on the one hand a familiar state within the day and night cycle and on the other hand a complex environmental condition. It occurs around nighttime in ranges between absence and dimness of electrical lighting or in spaces shielded from daylight and provides certain atmospheres and perceptual conditions. Darkness is continuously frequented, struggled against, adjusted, protected and preserved for various reasons affecting indoor and outdoor spaces. In what ways do we argue and theorize spatial darkness conditions? How do we address darkness, position it and study it as part of research? 

PhD-students occupied by experienced conditions of spatial environments affected by phenomena such as darkness, daylight and/or artificial light are invited to widen the scope of darkness by the cross-disciplinary perspective bringing anthropologic, historical, lighting design and architectural disciplines together.

The course will centre around presentations and discussions on key-texts, research examples and excursions to darkness environments with the aim to understand darkness as experienced phenomena and as part of research. 

Dates

TBA

Venue

Physical attendance
 

ECTS

3

Application deadline

TBA via https://katalog.kglakademi.dk/phdtilmeld.php

Language

English

Lecturer(s)

Dag Petersson                                                                     

Course description

Through this course, students obtain insights in the fundamentals of academic research practices. Particular focus is on crafting a proper academic object, formulating a good problem statement, structuring one’s data collection, and getting a first grasp on method, theory and analysis. This introduction is primarily for Ph.D.-students from the art, architecture, and design educations. Although it aims particularly at students who are in the early phases of their projects, students at more developed project phases will also benefit. Teaching is based on the participants’ individual project descriptions. The goal is to critically identify each project’s inherent academic requirements and preferred strategy, and to help students meet the established academic criteria and standards of validity.

Participants should upload/submit their full Ph.D. project description and project plan ahead of the deadline (to be defined).

Dates

TBA

Venue

Physical attendance

ECTS

3

Application deadline

TBA via https://katalog.kglakademi.dk/phdtilmeld.php

Language

English

Lecturer(s)

Jonna Majgaard Krarup                                                               

Course description

The Green Transition and the Green Tripartite initiate landscape transformations not seen since the Danish forest and agricultural reforms of the late 17th century. The 17th-century reforms were shaped by economic thinking, technological innovation, and philosophical ideas, which became co-designing agents in forming the present Danish landscapes.

Today, transformations are likewise driven by economic thinking, technological innovation, and philosophical ideas, but now rooted in agendas related to climate change, biodiversity loss, and CO₂ emissions—in short, the current polycrisis.

Many of these ideas, concepts, and innovations originate in disciplines other than landscape architecture, yet they will nevertheless impact both the landscapes themselves and professions such as landscape architecture. The nature of the polycrisis calls for transdisciplinary collaboration, as the challenges are complex.This raises a broader question: how can we understand, transfer, and implement ideas and concepts from other disciplines and spheres into fields such as landscape architecture? Do we share a common vocabulary or a common understanding of terminology?

Concepts and ideas migrate, but how are they mediated, negotiated, and implemented?

The course is organized as a colloquium and depends on the active participation of its participants. Each participant is therefore expected to write an essay specifically for this course, present their work orally and graphically, and engage in peer discussions and feedback sessions in plenary.

Dates

TBA

Venue

TBA

ECTS

3

Application deadline

TBA via https://katalog.kglakademi.dk/phdtilmeld.php

Language

English

Lecturer(s)

Sissel Olander         

Other lecturers 

TBA                                             

Course description

How can you build experiments into your research project and dissertation work? How can you develop stronger connections between the practical possibilities for setting up experiments in your project and your overarching research interests and questions?

This PhD course explores such questions through the lens of research-through-design, with a particular emphasis on research programs and how various practices of making – often described and understood as experiments – play a key role in the development ofnew knowledge. The course draws on Scandinavian traditions of programmatic design research alongside international theories of experimental research, and introduces different ways of theorizing and setting up experiments as an integrated part of the research process.

The course is structured around a two-day symposium in May, followed by a one-day seminar in August. The symposium combines lectures introducing different theoretical perspectives on experimentation with dialogue-based workshop sessions, where participants work with their own projects. For the seminar, participants will prepare and present a focused account of their own research approach, emphasising the role of experimentation, based on the theoretical and conceptual tools introduced during the symposium. The presentation – developed in the period between the symposium and the seminar – will form the basis for feedback from peers and instructors, providing clarity and direction for the ongoing doctoral work.

The course requires preparation through a selected set of readings and preparatory work for presentations at the seminar. Participants will give and receive feedback throughout, both in group settings and one-to-one. By the end of the course, participants will have developed a stronger understanding of how to construct and theorise experiments that can lead to valuable research contributions.

Dates

TBA

Venue

Physical attendance

ECTS

3

Application deadline

TBA via https://katalog.kglakademi.dk/phdtilmeld.php

Language

English

Lecturer(s)

Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen

Other Lecturer(s)

Martin Tamke                                                                      

Course description

Localising Futures is part of a PhD course series that critically examines the theorisation of sustainability. This iteration explores how the history and theory of sustainability shape architectural production and its material, technological, and formal cultures, with particular attention to locality as a defining condition within these transformations.

In the search for sustainable and equitable futures, localisation has emerged as a recurring imperative. Across sustainability discourses, it is positioned as a driver of ecological transition through decentralisation, bioregional governance, and community scale economies. It promises democratic agency, alignment with planetary boundaries, and forms of production and inhabitation grounded in accountability and meaning. 

The course examines how locality is produced, framed, and mobilised across sustainability discourses to asks how its meaning has evolved across theoretical, historical, and practical contexts.It examines localisation across three domains. Political frameworks (session 1). Material and environmental histories (session 2). Relational ecological theory (session 3).

Dates

TBA

Venue

Hybrid format

ECTS

5 ECTS (with essay) / 3 ECTS (without essay).

Application deadline

TBA via https://katalog.kglakademi.dk/phdtilmeld.php

Language

English

Lecturer(s)

Michael Asgaard Andersen                                                                    

Course description

“Sharing as Method” examines sharing as a critical concept across anthropology, commons governance, architecture, political philosophy, and ecology. Taking Jacques Rancière's concept of partage as its conceptual spine, the course asks what happens when sharing becomes not only a topic of inquiry but a method for conducting it. If every act of sharing is also an act of dividing, what does that mean for how we organise research, produce knowledge, and collaborate across disciplines?

The course is structured as three consecutive days following a dialectical arc. Day 1 explores sharing as anthropological foundation and collective possibility, drawing on commons theory, cohousing traditions, and participatory design. Day 2 confronts how sharing is captured, enclosed, and instrumentalised — through platform capitalism, gendered labour divisions, and the modern drive toward total accessibility and control. This day takes the form of either a full-day masterclass with an internationally prominent scholar, or three focused guest lectures. Day 3 examines commoning as renewed practice: cooperative platforms, multispecies cohabitation, and participatory governance.

Where Caring as Method (2026) explored care as an ethical orientation for research, Sharing as Method shifts the focus to the organisational and spatial dimensions of collective practice. It addresses PhD students from architecture, design, conservation, and adjacent fields, and asks how sharing can become a generative method.

Dates

TBA

Venue

Physical attendance, Campus Holmen

ECTS

3

Application deadline

TBA via https://katalog.kglakademi.dk/phdtilmeld.php

Language

English

Lecturer(s)

Henrik Oxvig, Associate Professor, IABL
Martin Søberg, Associate Professor, IAK        

Other Lecturer(s)

Ulrik Schmidt, Associate Professor, Roskilde University                                                            

Course description

This course explores how thinking relates to texts, images, sounds, environments and other reflective and creative media in the age of artificial intelligence. It explores the implications of technology and AI for current theory, criticism and practice in the fields of architecture, design, art, the humanities and social sciences. The course provides critical perspectives on thinking and technology in connection to imagination, creation and production and with an emphasis on ontological, epistemological, ethical and aesthetic inquiries. The aim is to stimulate specific theoretical, empirical and critical investigations concerning texts, images, sounds and environments.

Grounded in readings and discussions of key texts by thinkers such as Gilbert Simondon, Donna Haraway,Gilles Deleuze, Sybille Krämer, Tim Ingold, Martin Heidegger and Georges Didi-Hubermann, the course aims to support the integration of ideas and perspectives from, or related to these theoretical and critical strands into the students’ own research, with particular attention to thinking and technology.

The course includes a lecture by an invited international speaker.

Dates

TBA

Venue

Physical attendance

ECTS

3

Application deadline

TBA via https://katalog.kglakademi.dk/phdtilmeld.php