[Kaupunkitutkimus] VL: Open positions: 3 PhD candidates in Tallinn, Academy of Architecture and Urban Studies

[Sampo Ruoppila]

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Lähettäjä: Jenni Vilhelmiina Partanen <jenni.partanen at taltech.ee>
Lähetetty: 8. kesäkuuta 2020 12:20
Aihe: Open positions: 3 PhD candidates in Tallinn, Academy of Architecture and Urban Studies

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OPEN POSITIONS: 3 PhD Candidates

Academy of Architecture and Urban Studies, Tõnismägi 14, Tallinn

Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia


Academy of Architecture and Urban Studies is increasingly research-intensive unit in TalTech with internationally recognized unique, research-driven approach in education. The Academy engages in high-quality research and education within the field of architecture and urban studies. Our mission is to drive excellence in multi-disciplinary, future-oriented research concerning societal, environmental, cultural and economic complexity through collaborative and digitalized processes.

TalTech Academy of Architecture and Urban Studies opens three PhD positions in a research project concerning future urban technology mediated cities.  The cooperative project is established by TalTech, City of Tallinn and several private sector partners. The aim of the project is to suggest data-based solutions to built environment and planning, mobility and service development related to various aspects of the ´smart´ future city.  The doctoral candidates will work as a part of a research team located at the Academy of Architecture and Urban Studies building in Tõnismägi, Tallinn city center.

Applications are invited for three PhD candidate positions. We offer full funding for four years of full-time studies along with some traveling and other research expenses.

Context: Urban Transition

Cities are in a flux: Urban complex spatio-functional system, mobility and urban economics are evolving drastically due to rapid progress and innovations in energy, ICT and other fields of technology, along with life-style changes resulting from these. While the role of corporeal urban environment will retain, it will transform. Urban transformation is intertwined with emerging phenomena such as virtuality and autonomous transport guided by AI and enabled by extremely fast telecommunication connections. However, technology is not only a driver of change, but it also provides tools and methods for better understanding and guiding it. Approaches from data analytics to simulation and machine learning are required to respond to emerging challenges in urbanity, reflected against credible future visions.

For uncertainty of the future, making the city becomes crucial, along with new tools and methods of urban planning and design.



PhD Position 1. Urban spatial data analytics in urban design and planning

For the position, research will focus on dynamic morphological and spatio-functional aspects of cities, their transformation and planning and design of cities. While our ways to use the city will evolve, urban activity landscape and morphology will respond to this change. The research problems will circle around both making and reading the city, and may delve into the following issues and beyond: sustainable urban form(s) promoting urban high-quality space, natural light and greenery in regards to alternative approaches to overall densification, in different, alternative urban scales (from building to city level);  the impact of New Work, New Mobility and resulting lifestyles to the metabolia and spatio-functional configurations of the future city;  Urban planning, design and management tools and methods for technology mediated ‘programmable city’; or becoming of the (virtual?) ‘post-Pandemic city’.

See details: https://taltech.glowbase.com/positions/31



PhD Position 2. New urban design and analyses methods for transforming mobility and urban morphology

The emphasis on the research will concern the structure and (anticipated) use of transportation networks considering novel, emerging modes of transportation in an innovative manner. Furthermore, the resulting changes in mobility, traffic flows and ‘urban metabolia’ in corporeal city in general are studied with appropriate methods, for example using dynamic, distributed models and simulations. The research problems may concern, but are not limited to, the following issues: Impact of the characteristics of future mobile, multi-location and virtual work to the role of accessibility along with the relevance of the related urban theories, e.g. space syntax; the effect of the individual decisions regarding transportation mode (public, private, current, future modes) to the loads in (the parts of) the network, exploring potential threshold values; or relations between the network topology and its actual use, e.g. the emergent, cumulative role of individual drivers in congestion.

See details: https://taltech.glowbase.com/positions/32





PhD Position 3. Smart city urban economics and urban design: guiding of complex processes

The research will focus on the ongoing qualitative transition of urban systems towards ‘smart’ urbanity, along with transforming economic and production landscape and its spatial and morphological manifestations. The crucial issues to be studied could be e.g.  the future key industries and actors in the emerging techno-urbanity; their preferences and logics regarding the location decisions in urban regions; the impact of these choices to future urban economic geography; or the role of geographic and other types of proximities in the era of virtual, multi-location work.

See details: https://taltech.glowbase.com/positions/30



Requirements for the Applicants

University degree (M.Sc.) in urban design, urban planning, architecture or architectural engineering. Consideration will be given to applicants whose previous degrees are in related disciplines in urban studies. Furthermore, we encourage applications from candidates engaged with quantitative methods and/or Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Some programming skills (e.g. Grasshopper, GIS-environment or other) are preferred. Prior contributions or interests related to complex adaptive systems (CAS) are appreciated.



TalTech strives to be an inclusive workplace offering equal opportunities, attracting qualified candidates contributing to the University’s excellence and diversity. We welcome applications from all sections of the community and from people of all backgrounds.

 More information: jenni.partanen at taltech.ee


Jenni Partanen

D Sc(Arch), Professor of Future City

Academy of Architecture and Urban Studies, Tallinn University of Technology

tel +358 40 6146929

jenni.partanen at taltech.ee