I am an academic researcher and lecturer, teaching design at the Royal College of Art on the MA Information Experience Design.
My current work investigates architecture and the management cultures of Silicon Valley through writing, and artistic practices.
contact / claudia.dutson@rca.ac.uk
Current Research / Think Different - The Architecture of Silicon Valley
I set out to investigate a typology distinct from the corporate headquarters, or office, with its own particular history and genealogy: the tech-Campus. I aim to documentat the history of the development of Campus, to identify its defining characteristics, to interrogate the convergence of managerial and spatial practices, and to map the proliferation of these spatial strategies and tropes into other places of work: the creative industries and academia especially. Alongside academic papers, the outputs of the work will be architectural drawings and models to be exhibited, and a single-authored book critically assessing the architecture of companies who claim to make the world a better place.
Current Teaching / MA IED: The Proving Grounds, Royal College of Art
Experimental Design unit for 13 students with practices based in spatial design, speculative design, installation, performance, video, graphics, land art, sculpture.
Completed / PhD: Thermal Performance - The Politics of Environmental Management in Architecture
In summer 2017, I was awarded my PhD (AHRC-funded) from the School of Architecture, Royal College of Art.
The research, by practice, included video performance, databases, and a critical analysis of environmental architecture in knowledge economies.
Exhibited Work / RCA Show 2017
Completed / PhD: Thermal Performance - The Politics of Environmental Management in Architecture
The research takes as its premise the ambiguity of environmental design within the organisational management discourses of the knowledge economy. The failure of new buildings to perform as environmentally as they were designed, has been termed the 'performance gap'. I trace the concept of performance in architecture and models of 'sustainable' design and connect them to post-Fordist performance-oriented management processes.
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Writing / E.R.O.S. journal - Private Passions in the Silicon Valley
Article / The Totalitarian Facade
Research into the first 'virtual' office: Gaetano Pesce's design for advertising company Chiat/Day in 1994.
Previous Teaching / MArch Unit: Studio Disrupt 2016-17, Canterbury School of Architecture (UCA)
I was studio lead on this MArch (RIBA Part 2) course, with students investigating the concept of 'campus', learning from Silicon Valley to devise their own tech-headquarters for a site on the periphery of Milton Keynes.
Tuesday 5 June 2018
I will be joining the artists Langlands and Bell for a round table discussion, chaired by Niall Hobhouse, on notions of ‘campus’, explored in their current exhibition at IKON gallery in Birmingham.
6.00pm — 8.00pm
for tickets Ikon Gallery
Friday 9 March 2018
On the event of the publication of 6 books, I will be joining Helene Frichot, Catharina Gabrielsson, Elke Krasny and Katie Lloyd Thomas for a panel in Becoming 'we': A forum celebrating feminist spatial practice