Our March ECR profile features Dr Ayodeji Temitope Adeniyi. Ayodeji is an urban researcher (PhD), architectural practitioner (B.Arch) and urban designer (M.Urb.Des). He is a proponent of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research, and he has published in the fields of housing affordability and master-planned housing. Ayodeji is also committed to mixed-method applications. His PhD in planning, human geography, and sociology (The University of Queensland) explored semi-structured interviews, survey design, and social network analysis.
Dr Adeniyi is currently a post-doc researcher studying the vitality of Australian inner and middle suburbs, as well as how to benchmark interventions against other suburbs, cities, and relative to other disciplines. Below is a bit more about his work, tips and insights into the ECR life.
Your research in keywords?
Housing affordability, urban design, inner cities, middle suburbs, urban density
Why is your research important?
My research captures topical areas concerned with the state of the Australian and International economies. Importantly, my research considers the intersection between abstract measures of value and more responsive forms of value such as people’s housing preferences and how they interact with urban environments.
What ultimate goal/key issue is your research contributing to achieving/addressing?
My research broadly aims to address gaps in housing typology, as well as gaps related to our understanding of housing consumption. More recently, I have also been addressing ways to increase vitality on a municipal and national scale.
What is your research ‘top-tip’?
I learned from my Principal PhD supervisor to view maps primarily as a tool for exploration, rather than simply as an output. Mapping is not merely a vibrant representation of tabular data. Besides the plotting of known data points, mapping also reveals the significance of the spaces in-between. To find these ‘unknown’ relationships, the key is to map the data several times until they reveal themselves. Therefore, mapping contributes new data, it does not simply represent existing data.
What is your best/favourite research story?
Using job-search data to profile Australian Universities was particularly exciting.
What is the biggest challenge you face in carrying out your research?
A major challenge in the research is that most of the metrics used to gauge people’s urban and housing circumstance are geared towards financial metrics. This presents a challenge to source more responsive datasets, as well as communicating to stakeholders and external audiences.
What has been your proudest achievement in your research to date?
My proudest achievement was joining multiple projects in the University of Queensland’s School of Architecture Designing the Next Generation of Built Environments projects.
Recent/best publications (or publications you are most proud of?)
My housing affordability book chapter is particularly interesting, because it is succinct and clarifies some common misconceptions about the housing market.
You can get in touch with Dr Adeniyi and get to know more about his work in his institutional profile and on LinkedIn.
AECURN 