Title of PhD: The multiple trajectories of coworking: Reimagining space, work and architecture
Supervisors: Dr Phil Jones, Dr Lloyd Jenkins, Joe Holyoak (external supervisor, architect and urban designer)
I am an urban and social geographer with an interest in change and continuity in ways of working, designing and experiencing architectural and urban space, as well as Localism, Neighbourhood Planning and co-production.
I have recently submitted (awaiting examination) my doctoral research into the practices and spaces of coworking in the UK. Produced by researching with and alongside coworkers over 18 months, my thesis - The multiple trajectories of coworking: Reimagining space, work and architecture – examined how these particular workplaces are constituted through negotiating spatial relations of ‘home’, ‘work’ and ‘community’, how these architectural spaces are designed to prompt chance encounters and how they are entangled with becoming entrepreneurial and enacting economic possibilities.
Whilst undertaking this PhD research, I have worked as an RA on an AHRC-funded Connected Communities project MapLocal responding to the Localism Act 2011 (PI Jones, Geography, Birmingham) and as a seminar series co-ordinator for an ESRC-funded seminar series Ways of Neighbourhood Working and Knowing working with the Department for Communities and Local Government and the University of Bristol (PI Layard, Law, Bristol).