Design research, architectural research, architectural design research: An argument on disciplinarity and identity

Abstract

This paper studies the relationship between design and architectural research and questions whether these can be viewed as separate disciplines. It presents an historical review of how this relationship has changed over 40 years. Several interventions, including research assessment, provide a motive to identify architecture as a discipline, however locating a unique ‘architectural’ element continues to be problematic. This argument advances this debate noting that recent changes, understanding design as movement for societal change and the involvement of non-academics (researcher/practitioners) in practice-based research, open up new epistemic vantage points. In particular it is at the intersection of architectural design research (ADR) and detailed design studies of architects at work that new ways of constructing architectural and designerly knowledge emerge.