Aims and Objectives
Our aims and objectives have provided a constant reference point throughout the life of the project. We present a revised list, below, presented in the light of what we have achieved so far:
Zurich Airport Raum der Stille.
- We have located and described a wide range of MFS in the UK and overseas, far in excess of what we orignally planned. This has allowed us a far greater comparative scope than would otherwise have been the case.
- Through further reseearch within a selection of MFS, we have gained a greater insight into who creates and uses these spaces, and how MFS act as both symptoms and agents of social and religious change.
- We have considered how scale and degree(s) of multi-functionality affects both the practical efficacy of MFS as well as their integrative potential.
- We have broadcast our findings at academic and practitioner conferences, and via our project website. We are currently organising our own conference in order to bring together key international stakeholders, as well as to make public our initial findings. In addition, we are currently preparing material for publication within a range of academic journals.
- We have sought to stimulate public debate through participatory data gathering, a process we hope will continue through our touring exhibition.
- We hope to raise public and professional awareness of the architecture, history and effects of MFS through the UK's first compendium of MFS. This document will double as a 'Good Practice Guide', providing advice for policy makers and architects concerning the design and management of MFS, and will complement our exhibition.
- In tandem with our contemporary focus, we have sought to uncover the history of MFS, rooting out the oldest examples, and locating these within their socio-political context.
- We envisage that the project will make an important contribution to architectural theory, by highlighting the power and importance of societal, political, cultural and religious influences on contemporary design (even in some ultra-modern, allegedly rational buildings such as airports and hospitals). An undergraduate design studio at the Liverpool School of Architecture will seek to examine these assumptions.
- Lasty, we were keen that this research should contribute to scholarly discourses, particularly within the discipline of Science and Technology Studies (STS), which is increasingly recognised as a useful framework for the study of the built and urban environment, and the social practices that occur within material space.