Mark is a Senior Lecturer at Manchester School of Architecture with a background in participatory design-research approaches. His research focuses on the intersections between architecture and urban ageing within the home, community and city. His doctoral research explored the architect’s role as a ‘spatial agent’ in the creation of older people’s cohousing, based on a two-year design-led collaboration with a cohousing group in Manchester.
He is currently the research lead on the Manchester Age-Friendly Neighbourhood project, which has engaged over 4000 people in the creation and delivery of community action plans across Manchester. Mark’s research interest is the negotiation of architectural expertise within diverse context (community, bureaucracy and industry), seeking to use the open exchange of difference between actors as a means of generating creative expression rather than limiting compromises.
He combines his role at MSA with a secondment to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, where he is developing links between research, industry and policy within the GM Ageing Hub.