I tutor a MArch design studio that explores the relationship between people and place and how it is shaped and affected by architecture on a personal and social level. We work with creative methodologies from architecture and other spatial disciplines such as installation and relational art, performance and archaeology to develop propositional and active ways of working on site.

This way of working is directly related to my own Research by Design, working with artists and community groups to explore how intimacy can be nurtured between people and place.

I also coordinate and tutor the Reflections on Architectural Design Processes module in the MAAD (Masters in Architectural Design) that gives the students the opportunity to reflect upon the design processes and their wider cultural context. The module runs alongside the design studios and offers time to draw out methodological issues inherent in the students’ design work.

I coordinate the Live Project module of the MArch where groups of 5th and 6th year MArch and MAAD students work outside the School on real projects for client groups from the community. This gives the students an opportunity to test design ideas on real local, national and international projects while maintaining the criticality of an academic context. This is an innovative form of teaching architecture and one that is firmly embedded in the social ethos of the school.

I am also working with colleagues across the school to develop the scope of ‘liveness’ in the school to embed it further at all levels of the architectural education we offer to students.

I am working on a PhD by Design as a staff candidate. My research involves actively investigating the opportunities to redefine the site survey as a transformative and collaborative tool. I am particularly interested in performative survey techniques where potentialities of site are revealed by acting on site with other people. To inform and develop my research I am working on a series of designed case-studies that have grown out of my teaching and practice.

I am also a member of the At Home and Agency Research Groups and was involved in the organisation of the Common Grounds: On Site colloquium held at SSoA in April 2012. In July 2011, with other members of Agency, I taught at IUAV in Venice on their summer school programme.

I am also co-editor with Prue Chiles on ‘Live’, a book that will gather together and reflect upon 14 years of Live Projects at SSoA

2012 Higher Education Academy Teaching Development Award to produce a Live Project Handbook

2012 Funding granted for ‘The Arrivals Zone’ project as part of the University of Sheffield Festival of the Mind programme.

2011 In the RIBA Northern Network Awards Hangingwater House was awarded the ‘Category Award in Housing’ and a ‘Silver Award’.

2011 Delivered workshop on performative survey techniques at Compass Live Art Symposium, Leeds.

2007-2010 Consultancy for HMR pathfinder Elevate:

• collaborating on a case study highlighting benefits of regeneration organisations working with schools of architecture
• coordinating and managing a conference ‘Dig a Little Deeper’ for Elevate
• speaking at regional events and conferences, highlighting the role architects can play in the early participatory stages of regeneration

C. Butterworth and P.Chiles, ‘Field Diaries’, in Suzanne Ewing, Jeremie Michael McGowan, Chris Speed, Victoria Clare Bernie (ed.s), Architecture and Field/Work, London; New York: Routledge, 2010, pp. 129-138. ISBN: 978-0-415-59540-7

C. Butterworth, Four Towns, published by The School of Architecture to showcase four years of work by MArch Studio 5 in Pennine Lancashire HMR as part of a Knowledge Transfer project, 2010

C. Butterworth and S. Vardy, ‘Site-seeing: constructing the
creative survey’ in Alternate Currents field: Volume 2, issue 1, October 2008, pp.125-137. ISSN: 1755-068

C. Butterworth, ‘Of All We Survey’, in D. Littlefield and S. Lewis (ed.s), Architectural Voices, Chichester, England; Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2007, pp. 148-151. ISBN: 978 0 470 01673 2

C. Butterworth (ed.) This Would Never Happen in Accrington, London, The Bank of Ideas, 2007. ISBN: 978 0 9541362 6 0

C. Butterworth, ‘Big Things/Small Things; revealing an
architecture of the imagination’, in Encounters, The Shop Collections, Sheffield, The Site Gallery, 2006, pp. 86-87. ISBN: 1 899926 76 3