PhD student - Radical built heritage conservation for biodiversity promotion based on co-construction

Would you like to help uncover and activate unseen aspects of our cultural heritage and promote biodiversity through transformation in an existing collaboration with an active local community?

In most of the Western world, rural areas are undergoing major changes. Migration from countryside to city as a result of mechanization of agriculture and centralization of public institutions has led to depopulation of rural areas and left countless villages with empty houses in decay and infrastructure cut off.

The PhD project addresses unseen aspects of our cultural heritage in interaction with material resources that are bound in the everyday life of functionally emptied buildings in depopulated areas. It seeks potentials to expand the current cultural heritage apparatus to embrace more than classic restoration and temporal freezing.

The Aarhus School of Architecture seeks projects that combine biodiversity-promoting conservation approaches, controlled decay, subtractive and recycling-based transformation practices in close interaction with the surrounding local community, where the empty buildings are envisioned as a dynamic asset for those living in their immediate vicinity.

The partly ruinous villages are often equated with irreversible decline, but instead of viewing the development as a loss, the PhD project aims to investigate how cultural-historical exchange can arise in the transformed buildings at the intersection of nature and cultural processes, which potentially can strengthen local cohesion.

The urban renewal fund, the National Reforestation Plan and the Tripartite Agreement in mind, thus the ruinous villages constitute a major development potential to transform functionally emptied building mass into biodiversity-promoting meeting places across species and inherent cultural history.

The PhD project will situate itself in UTOPIA THY , which is an interdisciplinary co-creation and research project spanning a specific village community in Thy, municipal administration, and local and national knowledge institutions. UTOPIA THY transforms in a 1:1 scale abandoned buildings and overlooked urban spaces in Bedsted Thy into new community spaces shaped by hybrids of cultural-historical building reminiscences and newly planted forest. The project functions as a village-laboratory for method development within integrated nature and village development.

The Aarhus School of Architecture requests project proposals where knowledge development is substantially based on Research through Design, hence the transformation in 1:1 of one or more functionally emptied buildings in Bedsted Thy is expected to form the framework for the development and testing of combined strategies for radical building conservation and biodiversity promotion. Through the interventions, the project should thus explore how transformation strategies with integrated decay can support activation of cultural-historical aspects and at the same time initiate biodiversity pockets.

Co-creation with the local community and local actors should also be given substantial weight in the project proposal to explore how the interventions can mediate between people and nature and potentially strengthen place-specific identity formation. A theoretical framework in relation to international transformation approaches and co-existence forms with nature, in partially unregulated societies, is further envisioned to inform the development of the project’s aesthetic concept and view of nature, internationally as well as locally in Thy.

In collaboration with an ongoing PhD in anthropology there will be an opportunity to strengthen the project’s inherent interdisciplinary aspects in the form of a focused understanding and involvement of the local community for the benefit of the physical interventions’ relevance and viability.

Overall, the Aarhus School of Architecture seeks project proposals that embed experimental building conservation and biodiversity promotion in the village community and the nature from which it emerges.

About the position Enrollment at the PhD School with the aim of obtaining the PhD degree in architecture is a requirement for employment. The PhD program is a three-year scientific study program that includes teaching and dissemination in accordance with Executive Order on the PhD education at universities and certain higher artistic educational institutions under the Ministry of Education and Research .

The positions are full-time (37 hours per week). The workplace is the Aarhus School of Architecture, Exners Plads 7, 8000 Aarhus C, and the PhD student is expected to be actively and regularly present in the PhD School environment.

A PhD student’s tasks include, among others, the following

• Plan and conduct a PhD research project and formulate a PhD dissertation.
• Write and co-write scientific articles and other academic communication related to the PhD research project.
• Participate in and complete PhD courses in accordance with the PhD education.
• Participate in and co-organize workshops, seminars and conferences.
• Teach at the school’s programs in subjects related to the PhD project and the knowledge areas of the research laboratories.
• Carry out a stay at a research institution abroad for at least two months.
• Actively participate in the academic and social life at the PhD School and at the Aarhus School of Architecture.

What we offer At the Aarhus School of Architecture we can offer a creative and innovative research and teaching environment, into which PhD students also actively contribute.

In 2021 we moved into Denmark’s first newly built architecture school in the heart of Aarhus with greatly expanded workshop facilities and an open structure that invites collaboration across the school’s many academic environments. See the facilities here .

With the new building, the school has become a more integrated part of the city and the surrounding area, which now forms a creative and socially engaging environment. An environment where tomorrow’s architecture is created in collaboration with architectural firms and other players in the construction industry, entrepreneurs, the municipality, the city’s citizens and partners from around the world. As a Nordic institution, we have a long tradition of fostering a local approach to architecture. This tradition is also our basis for a strong international focus.

As an employee at the Aarhus School of Architecture you will have the opportunity to work with people of different ages from many different cultures. We work across boundaries, and everyone plays an important role and therefore has a voice regardless of position. We believe that with mutual recognition and a focus on collaboration we can create the best framework for an attractive and vibrant workplace.

We wish to fill the positions from January 1, 2027 or as soon as possible thereafter.

Application The Aarhus School of Architecture is seeking PhD students with relevant academic background at Master’s level.

You must upload an application that includes a project description relating to the project’s topic area. The project description must contain a professionally motivated subject description and problem statement, reflections on the project’s theoretical and methodological approach, and reflections on the research’s expected results. The total length of the application must not exceed six A4 pages.

In addition, you must upload the following documents as PDFs

• Copy of transcripts of examinations at Master’s level.
• CV including a publication list, if relevant.
• Portfolio (max. 20 MB).

The Aarhus School of Architecture is a diverse workplace with room for diversity, and we encourage all interested applicants with the relevant qualifications to apply for the positions.

Please note that the positions will be announced and will be filled in accordance with the Ministry of Education’s Executive Order of 12 April 2019 on the appointment of artistic and scientific staff at higher educational artistic institutions under the Ministry of Education and Research .

Shortlisting The architecture school uses shortlisting. Shortlisting means that only the applicants who, based on an overall assessment, best match the architecture school’s needs will be invited to a professional assessment. The sorting is done in accordance with the formal and professional requirements of the vacancy. All applicants will be informed whether their application has been shortlisted for assessment.

Assessment In the assessment of applications, weight will be given to

• That applicants hold a qualifying Master’s degree.
• That the project description builds on a clear and relevant idea that fits within the existing framework of UTOPIA THY.
• That the proposed research project can supplement and be supported by ongoing research at the Aarhus School of Architecture.
• That the proposed project can be developed into a defined and feasible research project within the framework of the school’s three-year PhD program.
• Whether the applicant’s CV, publication list and portfolio document relevant experiences that can support a PhD study with the proposed topic. It is not a requirement to document experience to apply.

The Hiring Committee will select, after the assessment, the applicants who are invited to interviews and we expect to hold interviews on 4 December 2026.

Salary and terms of employment Salary and terms of employment will be according to the memorandum on PhD stipends in Circular on the state agreement for academics (retsinformation.dk)

For non-Danish-speaking candidates, acquisition of the Danish language at user level within a three-year horizon is expected in order to contribute to the research laboratories’ external networks and collaborations.

Additional information Any questions about the position can be directed to associate professor Mo Michelsen Stochholm Krag at [email protected] / +45 8936 0222.

Please note that staff at the Aarhus School of Architecture take holidays in week 42.

Our ambition

The global changes the world stands in require action. At the Aarhus School of Architecture we train and develop architects who take responsibility for the future landscapes, cities and buildings.

We work for an architecture that is both beautiful and responsible – where aesthetics and ethics go hand in hand. With imagination as the driving force, we strengthen hope, rethink architectural practice and connect time and place through transformation.

In strong, multi-voiced communities we collaborate across disciplines to explore architecture’s range and educate architects who take care of the climate, nature and people – and who actively contribute to society’s development.

Together for a beautiful and responsible architecture

Read more about the school at aarch.dk