Staff Profile:Dr Ian Ewart

Name:

Dr Ian Ewart

Job Title:

Lecturer in Digital Technologies in the Built Environment

Responsibilities:

Academic Research and Teaching

Areas of Interest:

Ian worked in industry for many years as a mechanical design engineer before studying anthropology and turning to academic research and teaching. Combining these two pathways has led to an interest in the perception and use of technology and the role of technology in society. His DPhil fieldwork was carried out in rural Borneo, investigating the social and technical practices involved in the construction of houses and bridges. Further ethnographic research has taken him to the Didcot Railway Centre, where he spent 6 months restoring steam locomotives, looking at issues such as skill, craftsmanship, and the loss and recreation of technical knowledge. Since joining the University of Reading, and the School of the Built Environment, he has carried out domestic ethnographies looking into the use of technology at home by elderly people, and the social implications for digital technologies in providing healthcare at home.

In 2013 he was awarded a prestigious ESRC 'Future Research Leader' fellowship, for a research project combining ethnography with digital modelling and 3D virtual reality, investigating the links between house design and concepts of health. This project, called 'Designing Healthy Homes', is producing insights into the use of digital technologies in collaborative design (through VR models of re-designed houses), and the complexities of health at home (through a range of innovative ethnographic methods).

He has also carried out research into the experience of space in the built environment, using the University's Museum of English Rural Life as a prototype for a virtual reality museum, including the buildings and some objects from their collections. This has gone some way to demonstrating that VR spaces and objects are experienced very differently to the 'same' real spaces and objects.

His most recent project is expanding this work to examine multi-sensory built environments, by including sounds and smells into the recreation of a Roman town, based on excavation records, texts, and informed speculation. This work will have applications not only in archaeology, but in the experience of any built environment especially architecture, planning and design.

Ian' focus is on the perception and application of technologies in the context of the built environment, the practices this influences, and how these inform the real, social experience of the world. He is interested in any proposals for collaborative research projects, or PhD studentships at this intersection of the technical and the social. Current and recent PhD students include:

• Afolabi Dania - Understandings and enactments of sustainable construction in Nigeria.
• Joanna Hull - Heritage BIM: New ways of digital data management for the historic built environment.

Research groups / Centres:

Publications:

Y

Jump to: 2019 | 2018 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2006

Number of items: 13.

2019

• Ewart, I. J. (2019) The social consequences of minor innovations in construction. Construction Management and Economics. ISSN 0144-6193 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/01446193.2019.1614202
• Ewart, I. (2019) Friction: an engineer's perspective on weaving grass rope bridges. In: The Material Culture of Baksetry. Bloomsbury. (In Press)

2018

• Ewart, I. and Zuecco, V. (2018) Heritage Building Information Modelling (HBIM): a review of published case studies. In: 35th CIB W78 2018 International Conference: IT in Design, Construction, and Management, 1-3 October 2018, Chicago, Illinois, USA, pp. 35-41. (ISBN 978303000220-6)
• Ewart, I. J. (2018) Humanising the digital: a cautionary view of the future. In: Dixon, T., Connaughton, J. and Green, S. (eds.) Sustainable Futures in the Built Environment to 2050: A foresight approach to construction and development. Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 325-335. ISBN 9781119063810 doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119063834.ch16
• Ewart, I. J. (2018) Engineering as a process of Beauty. In: Bunn, S. (ed.) Anthropology and Beauty: From Aesthetics to Creativity. Routledge. ISBN 9781138928794

2015

• Ewart, I. J. and Harty, C. (2015) Provision of disability adaptations to the home: analysis of household survey data. Housing Studies, 30 (6). pp. 901-924. ISSN 0267-3037 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2014.991379

2014

• Dania, A. A., Larsen, G. D. and Ewart, I. J. (2014) Sustainable construction: exploring the capabilities of Nigerian construction firms. In: 30th Annual ARCOM Conference, 1-3 September 2014, Portsmouth, UK, pp. 3-12.
• Ewart, I. J. (2014) Designing healthy homes. In: International Conference of Construction in a Changing World, 4-7 May 2014, Sri Lanka, pp. 587-598.

2013

• Ewart, I. (2013) Designing by doing: building bridges in the highlands of Borneo. In: Gunn, W., Otto, T. and Smith, R. C. (eds.) Design Anthropology: Theory and Practice. Bloomsbury, London, pp. 85-99. ISBN 9780857853691
• Ewart, I. and Luck, R. (2013) Living 'from' home: older people looking beyond the house. Home Cultures, 10 (1). pp. 25-42. ISSN 1751-7427 doi: https://doi.org/10.2752/175174213X13500467495726

2012

• Ewart, I. and Luck, R. (2012) Portals to the world: technological extensions to the boundaries of the home. Interiors: Design, Architecture, Culture, 3 (1-2). pp. 7-22. ISSN 2041-9112 doi: https://doi.org/10.2752/204191212x13232577462457 (special issue 'Special effects: technology and the interior experience')
• Ewart, I. (2012) Social and material influences on the Kelabit dwelt environment. Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review, 23 (2). pp. 69-82. ISSN 1050-2092

2006

• Shortland, A. J., Tite, M. S. and Ewart, I. (2006) Ancient exploitation and use of cobalt alums from the western oases of Egypt. Archaeometry, 48 (1). pp. 153-168. ISSN 1475-4754 doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4754.2006.00248.x

This list was generated on Sat Aug 17 07:44:00 2019 UTC.

BEng Mechanical Engineering, Staffordshire University.

BA Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Oxford.

MSc Material Anthropology, University of Oxford.

DPhil Social and Cultural Anthropology (2012), University of Oxford.
Thesis title: An Anthropology of Engineering