The Glasgow Dean of Guild Court Trust PhD Scholarship in the Architectural Heritage of Glasgow

Studentship Start Date: September 2026

Celebrating 850 Years of Civic Leadership: Shaping the Future of Glasgow’s Built Legacy

The Glasgow School of Art (GSA) in partnership with The Glasgow Dean of Guild Court Trust announces the establishment of a prestigious PhD scholarship. This initiative marks a significant milestone in the celebration of Glasgow’s 850^th anniversary, commissioning original research in to the city’s heritage, history and built environment.

We are seeking a visionary scholar to undertake original, credible, and impactful research into the Architectural Heritage of Glasgow.

The scholarship theme of the Architectural Heritage of Glasgow is intentionally expansive, welcoming diverse perspectives, methodologies, and interpretations. This research project sits at the intersection of the Mackintosh School of Architecture's (MSA) four leading research clusters. Applicants are invited to position their work within or across these distinct areas:

• MEAURU (Sustainability & Wellbeing): With over thirty years of high-impact research shaping building performance and policy, MEAURU focuses on improving the environmental, energy, and carbon performance of buildings through low-energy architectural design and simulation. Key areas include assessing the relationship between energy use, carbon emissions, indoor environmental quality, comfort, and occupant health in buildings.
• Glasgow Urban Lab: Investigates the contemporary and future city through comparative urbanism, exploring the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of urban transformation. Working collaboratively with Glasgow City Council and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), GUL informs people-centred strategies and policy.
• HAUS (History & Urban Studies): Investigates the historical development of the built environment. Research interests include the city in the early modern period, architecture and national identity, the architecture of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Glasgow architecture and urban design, architecture in the post-modern period, the relation of housing and film, embodied energy in historic buildings, and comparative studies of architectural change in Europe and the Global South.
• Pedagogy – Praxis (Missing in Architecture): Challenges established architectural histories by investigating erased and marginalised narratives, pioneering inclusive pedagogies to help future-proof creative education through a lens of social justice, EDI, and critical practice. The cluster champions practice-based research, where active design generates new knowledge for heritage restoration and conservation. This approach fosters innovative, evidence-based methods that engage communities as both users and makers to reimagine the built environment.

Candidates are encouraged to explore intersections between core themes such as:

• Building Regeneration: Transforming derelict or underutilised assets for contemporary needs.
• Adaptive Reuse: Giving new life to historic structures while respecting their cultural roots.
• Conservation & Materiality: Advanced techniques in preserving Glasgow's unique sandstone and ironwork legacy.
• Social History & Architecture: Unearthing the human stories embedded in the built environment.
• Sustainable Retrofit: Upgrading listed and historically important building types, such as Glasgow's tenements, to meet current and future standards of carbon, comfort, and health.
• Future-proofing: Preparing buildings and neighbourhoods for resilience against climate change scenarios.

Potential research trajectories may include, but are not limited to:

• The adaptive reuse of post-industrial waterfronts.
• Critical analyses of Glasgow's high-rise housing legacy.
• Innovative approaches to preserving Glasgow's distinct red sandstone and ironwork.
• Strategies for retrofitting historic tenements for a net-zero future.
• Replanning and designing neighbourhoods to withstand extreme weather, rising temperatures, and flooding.
• The role of architecture in shaping social inclusion within diverse Glasgow communities.
• Interventions  in the public realm that reconnect the city with its rivers and green spaces.

As part of the GSA, you will join a world-leading institution dedicated to creativity and critical inquiry. You will work alongside experts committed to creating something meaningful to celebrate our city's anniversary, ensuring your research has real-world resonance and impact.