Doing a PhD - Charlotte McLean

Charlotte embarked on her PhD journey in 2019, completing it in October 2024. Her PhD was based at Manchester Metropolitan University although conducted from her home in Scotland where the Mark Turnbull archive was based. This necessitated a ten hour weekly commute and overnight stay in Manchester and, in hindsight, put her at a considerable disadvantage from her contemporaries. However, six months in, the whole world entered uncharted territory with Covid 19 heralding a series of lockdowns and the closure of libraries. Suddenly all students were in the same boat, conducting research from afar best they could with Zoom and Teams meetings becoming a part of everyday life.

In between lockdowns, her research took her to America where she was fortunate to spend six days in the Architectural Archives of the Stuart Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania studying regional mapping projects undertaken by students of Ian McHarg (author of Design with Nature, 1969).

For this talk, she will recount the story of her PhD, its background, the highs and lows, pros and cons, interspersed with some ‘juicy bits,’ and where she is now on her research journey.