Grant for Amy Thomas to further explore unexpected results
When you discover unexpected results during your research, you often can’t do anything with it. Because the research plan and budget didn’t allow for it. To explore these kinds of results either way, seven projects receive a small top-up grant thanks to the Impact Explorer call. This top-up will also be useful for Dr. Amy Thomas and her research about the role of gender in design of buildings and interiors.
Her Veni research has uncovered that offices are designed predominantly with a male user in mind. As a result, women’s bodies, social experiences, and care-workloads have been overlooked in the way workplaces are designed. This in turn disadvantages women, particularly with regards to their wellbeing.
‘With the Impact Explorer grant, we have a chance to prototype a new workplace design method that involves women workers in the process, says Amy Thomas.
‘But through the research I was both surprised and excited to find that grassroots women’s groups (e.g., feminist labour groups, breastfeeding activists, mother-to-mother groups) had historically been able to make a difference to women in this regard. Through listening to their experiences, telling their stories, and giving them the agency to enact change in their workplaces. It seemed to me that this was important to learn from, and might offer a template for better design processes in the future.’
‘I am looking forward to working with my Impact Partner, acclaimed British dramaturgists Nigel & Louise, to create a participatory design method that helps architects and designers engage directly with women users, drawing on these grassroots techniques.’ Using storytelling, reenactment, and participatory futures thinking, her hope is to create a workshop that really takes women’s experiences into account, giving both the women and the designers agency to create more inclusive spaces.’
About this call
The grant is intended for activities to validate the potential societal impact of discoveries from more curiosity-driven research, from the Talent Line and Open Competitions of both NWO and ZonMw and to explore a route towards it. A total of €1.000.000 is available for small grants between €20.000 and €30.000. A concise procedure will be used during the application process. Besides Amy Thomas six other Dutch researchers have received a grant. Currently no new applications can be submitted.
More information
Amy Thomas is associate professor of architecture and cultural history in the Architecture department where she researches the relationships between design, social life and the city, at any scale.
View her staff page here.