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Biography
After his studies in architecture at TU Dresden, Dr Wiedmann completed his master's and a German Doctor of Engineering (PhD) at the Institute of Urban Planning and Design of the University of Stuttgart, Germany.
In the following years, he was engaged at Albert Speer + Partner (AS+P) in Frankfurt am Main, where he worked on projects in Munich, such as the urban design and planning parameters for a high-density affordable housing project (1,000 units) to promote sustainable mobility and the new Siemens Headquarters. He also participated in the development of a master plan for a satellite city centre for 600,000 new inhabitants and transit-oriented development in metro Cairo.
In 2011, he joined an international research collaboration between the Technical University of Munich and Qatar University as a post-doc and project director. Over three years, during which he lived in Doha, Qatar, he coordinated an interdisciplinary and international team and explored new approaches to identify the various interdependencies between emerging knowledge economies and new forms of urbanism in the Global South.
After successfully acquiring a new research project from the Qatar National Research Fund in 2015, he joined the University of Strathclyde (Department of Architecture) in Glasgow, where he studied the effects of rapid migration on housing and mobility concerns in the Middle East. This research effort resulted in his latest book publication: 'Building Migrant Cities in the Gulf - Urban Transformation in the Middle East'.
In parallel to his research projects, he has been engaged as external lecturer and examiner of undergraduate and postgraduate courses at Frankfurt University of Applied, Münster University of Applied Sciences, German University of Cairo, and HFT Stuttgart between 2014 and 2019.
In March 2019 he joined the University of Nottingham and its Department of Architecture and Built Environment as Assistant Professor in Urban Design and Architecture. Dr Wiedmann is apart of the Architecture, Tectonics and Culture Research Group and the university-wide Energy Institute.
Dr Wiedman is co-course director of the MArch in Sustainable Urban Design and module convenor of ABEE3035 Sustainable Urbanism and ABEE4019 Urban Design Management. In addition, he is teaching urban design and housing related studios in both the MArch and BArch (Part 1) courses.
Expertise Summary
Dr Wiedmann is specialised in investigating urbanism and housing from an international and interdisciplinary perspective who has been working in research, consulting, and teaching since 2006. His research frameworks and methodologies follow an integrated approach and are rooted in space production theories set in juxtaposition to a contemporary understanding of sustainable urbanism. His involvement in interdisciplinary research projects and courses at eight universities in Germany, the UK, and the Middle East made it possible for him to gain in-depth experience in investigating the complex relationship between people and places on an international scale.
The main focus of his research can be found in exploring integrated ways to investigate current urban morphologies (e. g. housing typologies) and their transformations as the result of newly emerging spatial practices, via methods such as Space Syntax, mapping surveys, and strategic observations or interviews (e. g. focus groups).
Research Summary
Dr Wiedmann has been conducting and supervising research in following projects:
- Governance transformation in the GCC: The role of freehold property markets in changing urban morphologies in the case of the Kingdom of Bahrain.
- Emerging knowledge economies in the GCC: The role of advanced producer services and their employees in changing urban morphologies due to new neighbourhoods and workplace agglomerations in the case of Doha, Qatar.
- Migration and housing patterns in the GCC: The role of different migrant groups and their housing and lifestyle preferences in Qatar and the UAE.
- Transit-oriented development in the GCC: The role of new metro stations in forming neighbourhoods and new spatial practices in the case of Dubai and Doha.
- Post-war housing estates in Germany: The role of post-war mass housing estates in contemporary urban contexts and their production of spatial practices.
- Edge city formation in Beijing: The role of new neighbourhoods in planned edge cities to foster integrated urban development.
- Council housing estates and their space production in the United Kingdom: The resulting spatial practices of four distinctive eras in the contemporary urban context of Nottingham.
- Medium to high density housing solutions in the United Kingdom: The exploration of different open space strategies and housing typologies in the contemporary urban context of Nottingham and London.
- Best practices in forming neighbourhoods and communities via contemporary housing strategies in European cities: The role of partially open, connected, and shared courtyards.
- Integrated community building in Shanghai: A comparison of historic neighbourhoods from the 1950s and contemporary neighbourhood trends.