Deschooling through liveness: Becoming agent of civic (un)learning between The University and The City

This thesis is concerned with the spaces of civic (un)learning which emerge when universities engage with communities in the design of complex, structured urban
contexts under threat from privatisation and gentrification.

The focus of the study, Live Works, is an organisation established by The University of Sheffield’s School of Architecture (SSoA) to connect the design and research expertise of the university with local communities and exists as both a physical ‘Urban Room’ in Sheffield City Centre and a project office undertaking design
and research projects outside the academy in the city. Live Works emerged as a continuation of SSoA’s Live Projects programme, a pedagogical experiment which
began in 1999 and has since completed over 200 projects connecting architecture students in partnership with communities.

The research explores this moment of continuation from the perspective of my experience, beginning as an SSoA Live Project in 2016, and continuing through practice
with Live Works until the establishment of a temporary Urban Room as a tool for co-production in November 2022 in the structured context of Castlegate, Sheffield.
Following my design, research and teaching practice over this period, I explore the development of Live Work’s role as an agent advocating for critical and creative
approaches to community engagement in urban design projects. Drawing on the context of Live Works engaging in Castlegate, I analyse the process through which
Live Works facilitates conditions for civic (un)learning: 1. Producing critical citizens capable of resisting the structures of educational and architectural institutions, 2. Developing tools and practices to allow communities to engage in critical discourse on urban development and 3. Catalysing and supporting a community of practices of
artists, residents, local businesses, cultural enterprises and heritage interest groups with the agency to enact processes of collective stewardship or ‘commoning’ of urban spaces.

The research challenges the emerging notion of a ‘civic university’ which employs a rigid identity of the university as ‘expert’ and community as ‘participant’ to achieve
‘impact’ through research.

Education throughout modernity has become increasingly commodified, developing alongside industrialisation as a means to ‘prepare’ and ‘qualify’ students for the relevant jobs of the market through the use of both explicit and ‘hidden’ curricula. Meanwhile, a developing disconnect is emerging between the way our schools and
universities educate and the systems of governance, technology and the environment in which we live. The Civic University has emerged as a means to address the
gap between the university and the city. However, I argue for a rethinking of this institutional impact approach, from the embedding of civic engagement within the
university, to a ‘liveness’ which employs spatial practice to embed civic engagement in the city and its public space. In order to understand a ‘live’ approach to civic
engagement, an embedded approach to research was taken in 3 phases of practice, with an associated 3 positions relative to Live Works.

1. A first phase reflects on my own experiences as a participant of Live Projects and consequent interventions aiming to understand their potential to
generate critical citizens.

2. A second phase conducts research with Live Works, in order to understand the tools and practices it employs to facilitate civic (un)learning.

3. A third phase utilised an ethnographic approach to practise with Live Works in establishing a community led approach to the regeneration of Castlegate,
Sheffield. Analysing its many and varied roles as an agent of civic (un)learning.