Rachel Sara

• Professor
• Professor at Birmingham City University

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the importance of personalisation in the relationship between the architectural design of homes and inhabitants’ psychological well-being. Design/methodology/approach This interdisciplinary mixed-method study first investigates the existence of a link between personalisation and users’ association wi...

This paper reflects on collaborative live architectural design projects between Birmingham School of Architecture and Design (BSoAD) students and social lab, CoLab Dudley in Dudley, UK. CoLab Dudley is an experimental form of social and imagination infrastructure seeking to create the conditions for cultural action rooted in long term thinking, col...

This poster provides the links to two films that were created to prompt discussion around the architecture and design studio crit. The films were funded by CEBE (Centre for Education and the Built Environment) and are a way of disseminating research undertaken by Dr Rachel Sara in 2011. This research captured a snapshot of both staff and student ex...

The traditional design crit is a process with a structural power imbalance, a tendency for criticism rather than critique, a focus on fault-finding rather than solution-finding, and an environment that is set up for confrontation rather than dialogue. Fundamentally, however, the model understands creative production as an inherently individual proc...

This paper explores participatory architecture through counterbalancing a historical review with an analysis of four emergent projects. This paper aims to contribute to understanding emergent participatory architecture practices and extract best practice and insights around these forms of designing with people. We analyse four emergent participator...

A practical guide and methodology for 'live' architecture projects. The handbook is aimed at University students, community stakeholders and clients.

Architectural design can have profound implications on human health and planetary wellbeing. The built environment is currently one of the most important determinants of health and wellbeing. As human health comprises of physical, mental and social aspects, it is vital that the design of buildings addresses each of these aspects holistically with a...

Austerity has led to a growing interest in small-scale urban practices that engage community groups in participatory placemaking as an alternative to developing government or commercially funded parks and urban spaces. These approaches draw on bottom-up tactics to empower local community groups to take ownership of small communal spaces but are als...

There is growing evidence that an individual's power to influence decisions in their environment can impact on their health and wellbeing. The Marmot review (2010) into health inequalities put 'empowerment of individuals and communities at the centre of actions to reduce health inequalities.' This is particularly important since evidence suggests t...

In 1991, Dahlgren and Whitehead produced a highly influential model of the determinants of health that has since been used by numerous national and international public health organizations globally. The purpose of the model is to enable interventions that improve health to be addressed at four key policy levels. It is not a model of health or dise...

Universities have a civic responsibility towards the cities of which they are a part. This is typically operationalised through Outreach and Engagement, which aims to share and apply the expertise and knowledge generated by the university with communities. The model is typically a one-direction path from the University to communities, but there is...

Architecture is, at its most basic, about imagining desirable futures. Yet, despite growing awareness of the lasting and extensive effects that design decisions have in the world, many people remain inadequately represented (or entirely unrepresented) by the profession, which lacks diversity. The faction of those who hold the power to design is sti...

The theme of transgression has been the subject of much twentieth-century thought, touching on a range of ideas including, for example, identity, society, the nature of architecture and the social role of the carnival. Here, Rachel Sara and David Littlefield set out how the notion of transgression can be applied to the relationships between body an...

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s nineteenth-century romance The Scarlet Letter centers on the simple transgression of adultery and its social consequences. Hawthorne’s narrative and storytelling skill, however, are far from simple; the author manages to subtly and cleverly set the tale within a framework of other transgressions. Ideas of space and other socia...

The newly formed Association of Architecture Educators aae generates a unique opportunity to establish a learning commons for architecture, in which architectural educators committed to inquiry and innovation convene: to exchange ideas; to collaborate in the co-creation of knowledge; and to employ these outputs in meeting the challenges of educatin...

Almost four decades ago, the influential architect and educator Bernard Tschumi wrote the seminal manifesto ‘Architecture and Transgression’. Here, Guest-Editors Jonathan Mosley and Rachel Sara revisit with Tschumi his original thesis, investigating how his thinking has evolved around transgression and its aptness for the world today.

Transgression is by implication transdisciplinary, slipping beyond accepted boundaries. Rachel Sara describes how Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi designed her buildings in a state of ‘incompleteness’, so as to be ready for a collaborative occupancy in ‘recognition that the users' experiences construct the architecture as much as the architect her...

They will hear with a third ear what is said here between the lines - and even what is left unsaid.' (Reik, 1949) How can a space affect us and we affect a space? How can we encourage architecture students to close the distance between themselves and the built environment? This case study records/relays/reflects on an innovative workshop that enabl...

Architectural education in the UK has sustained criticism from many quarters: from the institutions and the profession, from the public and students and from architectural educators themselves. These criticisms have sought to expose an imbalance in the education of architects and their resultant practice. An imbalance which emphasises: individuals...