Histories of Common Space

History can be the most subversive of disciplines as it questions what we take for granted, opening the rebellion of choice (Zinn 1980; Scott 2017). This strand is about understanding our shared constructed environment through historical investigations of architecture, landscape, society, culture, power and politics, as well as economy, industry and environment. The nature of the constructed environment pushes us to borrow from a variety of disciplines such as anthropology, conservation and environmental studies, human geography and political science, among others. Yet historical questioning lies at the core of these multiple disciplinary entanglements as we attempt to make sense of how contemporary urban cultures, spatial and artistic practices, heritage and ecologies came to be so. This strand supports research into the nature, effects and affects of design, with the aim of enriching our understanding of progress and continuity, its impacts on identity, migration, biospheres, politics, knowledge production and the march of urbanisation.