Staff / Dr Geoff McKennan
Senior Lecturer
0161 247 6960
SHORT CURRICULUM VITAE
Date and Place of Birth 15 May 1949, Sheffield
Degrees Dip Arch 1973
PhD 1977
Awards SERC (now EPSRC) Advanced Fellowship
1973-74 Research Fellow, Institute of Advanced Studies Manchester Polytechnic
1974-77 Research Assistant, Plymouth Polytechnic
1977-78 Private practice, Brighton
1978-82 Research Associate, Welsh School of Architecture University of Wales
1978-82 Lecturer, part-time, Cheltenham School of Architecture
1982-85 SERC Advanced Fellow, Welsh School of Architecture, University of Wales
1985- Senior Lecturer, Department of Architecture Landscape and Three-Dimensional Design, Manchester Polytechnic (now the Manchester School of Architecture)
WEB BASED TEACHING PUBLICATIONS
1. Geometry of Natural Light – www.msa.mmu.ac.uk/~geoff/
2. Natural Lighting Glossary – www.msa.mmu.ac.uk/~geoff/
3. Measures of Daylight – www.msa.mmu.ac.uk/~geoff/
4. Electric Lighting Strategies: Offices – www.msa.mmu.ac.uk/~geoff/
5. A New Set of Illusions? – www.msa.mmu.ac.uk/~geoff/
6. Aesthetics Module, (with James Bell, emeritus professor, Manchester University) Interior Lighting Section, MSc in Sustainable Electrical Design, a distance learning course, UMIST, 2002
of staff)
DAYLIGHT MEASUREMENT STATION
Through my daylighting research and professional activities, Manchester Metropolitan University became the site of a daylight measurement station as part of an international daylight programme. Only two other stations were created in the UK, at the Building Research Station and at Sheffield University. The national programme of daylight measurements was directed by Professor Peter Tregenza at the University of Sheffield who was the major grant holder and it was through collaboration with him that we housed the station. The value of the station itself was £80k.
The monetary value of the station was however less significant than the prestige it brought to the University in locating it on the international map of measurement stations.
EXPERT SYSTEM FOR COMMISSIONING BUILDING SERVICES
This was a joint application from the institute of advanced studies in the Faculty of Art and Design and myself for NAB funding. The project involved external collaboration with the professions and industry and was successful in obtaining funding of £32k. This project has seen the completion of an MPhil.
RURAL REVITALISATION PROJECT
This project focussed on a proposal that I put forward to create a Regional School for Rural Revitalisation in the Istrian region of Croatia as an academic base for research and teaching. The project was drafted as a TEMPUS application for c£300k. The project was well received in Brussels but was curtailed by the war in Yugoslavia. However, in its development the project involved a pilot project on the island of Solta and collaboration with and visits to Manchester from the University of Zagreb, Department of Architecture, University of Zagreb Department of Anthropology, University of Rijeka Teaching Faculty and the Croatian Academy of Sciences International Centre for Anthropology Motovun. The project attracted funding from the British Council and Yugoplastika as well as the above-mentioned academic institutions.
Research and scholarly activity in the visual environment and lighting of buildings was in large part the subject of my PhD thesis and the subject of my post-doctoral research. All my publications listed separately are concerned with the visual environment and lighting of buildings.
My post doctoral research at the University of Wales entailed the running of two consecutive SERC (now EPSRC) funded projects concerned with energy conservation and lighting which also attracted funding from the department of energy and became a DoEn energy demonstration project. This work received several discussions in the technical press (for example see below references 1, 2, 3 and 4) and was published by the DoEn (see below reference 5).
This work led to the award of an SERC Advanced Fellowship – awarded to “outstanding research workers under 35 who do not hold tenured posts” (report of SERC for year 80-81 p 57). My study attracted funding also from the DoE Building Research Establishment.
My work on daylighting and trees conducted since being at Manchester and starting in 1987 has so far resulted in the invitation to present work at seminars, it has been taken up by the technical press (see below reference 6) and has been included in the latest official guidance on climatic design (see below reference 7). The publications resulting from this work have generated requests for reprints from several countries throughout the world and I can confidently say that I am the authority on this subject within the UK. This work may see a revival due to a request from UMIST to participate in a joint research application looking to broaden this study to other areas of the interaction of buildings and landscape with respect to energy use.
1. Fischer D General Lighting Versus Local Lighting in Offices. International Lighting Review. 1980 4 pp 108 –110
2. Ed. What Future for Task Lighting? Jnl. of the Chartered Institution of Building Services. April 1981 p 39
3. Crisp V Lighting the Energy Key? Jnl. of the Chartered Institution of Building Services. May 1984 p 67
4. Walden D Lightening the Load: Cutting Building Energy Costs. Energy in Buildings. July/Aug 1985 pp 13 -14
5. Anon Non Uniform Lighting Installation in an Open Plan Building. DoEn Demonstration Project F/56/85/90
6. Anon Trees Leave Buildings in the Shade. Building Technical File. No 25 April 1989 pp 23 – 26
7. Anon Climate and Site Development. BRE Digest 350. April 1990
Projects
Design
My consultancy work is in the discipline of architectural lighting design and includes the following;
NATIONAL GALLERY EXTENSION
Adviser on natural lighting for the competition-winning scheme to Ahrends, Burton And Koralek, architects.
CHESTER HERITAGE CENTRE
LAURENCE SAUNDERS ROAD BAPTIST CHURCH, COVENTRY
ST MATTHEW CHELTENHAM
ST THOMAS AND ST JOHN, RADCLIFF
Interior lighting design for Nicholas Rank Associates, architects
MARSH MILL INTERPRETATION CENTRE
Interior lighting design for Connibear Associates
CWMBRAN COUNTY COUNCIL OFFICES
Low energy office lighting design for Cwmbran county council
Research
A selection of recent research outputs.Edited Books
Mills, G., Fitzpatrick, J., Chadwick D., O'Donnell, C., Islam A., Ellis D., Brown F.,, 2001. 'Manchester Architecture Papers', The Manchester School of Architecture.
Book Chapters
McKennan, G., 2001. 'Mantegna and ecological perception'. In Manchester Architecture Papers, 63-76, Manchester School of Architecture.
McKennan, G., 2001. 'Trees and Light'. In Manchester Architecture Papers, 115-125, Manchester School of Architecture, Manchester.
Presentations
McKennan, G., 2006. 'Bioclimatic Architecture', North Sun 2001: 9th International conference on solar energy in high latitudes., Leiden, Netherlands, 2001.
Other Outputs
McKennan, G., 2006. 'British Standard 5837:5000 Trees in relation to construction. Recommendations', ISBN 0 580 464180 pages 9-10 (sections 5.3.1 and 6.3.2) Guidance relating to light obstruction based on data from the author's studies of light attenuation by trees..