This PhD project is primarily interested in the relations that emerge between architecture and its users (the who question).

Today, architectural value seems to a higher degree to be attached to the secondary functions or connotations of a building than it’s primarily function or denotation. The reason for this is that the connotations deliver symbolic associations and emotional meaning which today is highly demanded. The value of these “other ways” of using architecture is, to a large extent, difficult to demonstrate sufficiently to clients and developers by the architect (the why question). Hence, the project follows the processes in which architecture and users, over time, inscribe each other in a network (the what question) when users act in, interact with, react to and enact architecture (the when question). The case study is the relocation of a large Danish Media corporation from an old dilapidated headquarter to a new tailor designed headquarter (the where question). The intention is to show and analyze the local negotiations between architecture and user using ethnographic methods (the how question) – what who does, in order to get the added value effects attributed to the architectural design?

The study is an industrial PhD and besides IOA/CBS as the academic institution, PLH Architects takes a vital part in the project as industrial partner and contributor. The study runs from May 2008 to July 2011.