Research / Design and Academia

Editorial Summary In her contribution »Research / Design and Academia« Susanne Hauser discusses institutional developments and changes in academia since the 1990s, alongside which disciplinary frontiers and thematic as well as methodological approaches have been re-examined and reorganized. She highlights systemic differences in funding as well as uneven particularity in methodological attempts as fundamental reasons for the different recognition of e.g. practice- based and traditional types of academic research in architecture. Against the background of her personal academic foundation in cultural studies, she traces the genesis of the architect’s education as a generalist, responsible for design and conception, creation and making. Considering the specific potential of design, she argues for the recognition of designing as a specific approach to the generation of knowledge. [Katharina Voigt]

Reflexions on the Plurality of Methods in Architecture

Editorial Summary With »Reflexions on the Plurality of Research Methodology in Architecture«, Oya Atalay Franck explores the plurality of methods in architecture, unfolding the broad variety of working fields in the discipline. She highlights the specificity of the design tasks, resulting in a unique challenge for each task with correspondingly individual answers and results, thereby framing designing as an adaptive creational process that corresponds to the distinct demands of the project. Although the design process here is outlined as interactive and feedback-dependent, including the interwoven use of different media and working methods, this contribution questions whether the discipline of architecture can actually be investigated according to proven procedures of research practice. [Katharina Voigt]

Research through Design under Systematic Quality Criteria: Methodology and Teaching Research

Editorial Summary In their contribution, Sören Schöbel, Julian Schäfer and Georg Hausladen ask how architectural design can be used as a method of gaining scientific knowledge. They state that this is only possible if architectural design, which is generally characterized by a specific, creative, subjective and case-by-case process, is embedded into a methodical framework that enables general, i.e. transferable and verifiable knowledge. By stating that qualitative research in the disciplines in which it was developed is essentially based on a creative but nevertheless systematic interpretation of data in search of new, previously unknown structures the authors see a proximity to design in architecture, and therefore suggest transfering the quality criteria of qualitative research to research-based design. They describe three basic principles - regularity, relevance, and universality - and illustrate how research through design can be carried out using these principles with the example of different teaching formats. [Ferdinand Ludwig]

Data-Driven Research on Ecological Prototypes for Green Architecture: Enabling Urban Intensification and Restoration through Agricultural Hybrids

Editorial Summary In »Data-Driven Research on Ecological Prototypes for Green Architecture« Defne Sunguroğlu Hensel introduces a design research attempt to the field of environment design, landscape, architecture, and green technologies in the context of urbanization, questioning the interrelation of architectural buildings and ecological, agricultural, and natural free space. This research proposes their inclusive interplay, aiming to dissolve the notion of construction as a driving force of land degradation and instead emphasizing its potential to facilitate green infrastructures in the realm of the built environment. Green constructions are described as a reasonable interlocking of architectural basic structures and their agricultural or horticultural use. She analyzes historically proven examples, underlining their contemporary potentials for adaptation and transition. [Katharina Voigt]

»Reclaiming« the City: A Collective Endeavor

This contribution elaborates upon the appropriation of urban space in spatiotemporal and procedural interventions in the example of the city of Kharkiv, as well as the impact of urban space on the process of how various groups rediscover and use various parts of the city. Being moved during collective actions - in the sense of feeling urged to move along - goes beyond routine practices by influencing the city and its perception. It seems that these general processions, celebrations, and festive activities of the residents are their contributions to the process of »urban renaissance« - the rebirth of interest in the urban way of life. Since public spaces reflect the historical inheritance of local communities, joint transformative actions such as, »appropriation «, »production«, and »governance« of urban spaces are considered. This article advocates for the practice of domestication of urban space by the local community, as well as the need for the existence of »urban lagoons« - free (unregulated) areas of the city used as resources for urban development and interaction of citizens.

Thinking the Transformative

Editorial Summary Steffen Bösenberg’s contribution »Thinking the Transformative« reflects the dynamic momentum of reflexive design and research. In reference to the working process of his doctoral thesis, he highlights the procedural circularity of reflexive, concept-driven research approaches, tracing the »circular motion of constant reflection and rethinking«. Hereby a transdisciplinary concept of »plasticity« is explored as a productive tool in the analysis of design methods in adaptive reuse. Decision-making, reconsideration, comparison or evaluation thereby become considerable as reciprocally interlinked processes, which equally depend upon and shape each other. Most interestingly, the transformation and plasticity of the process mirrors the dynamic dimension of the investigated case studies. [Katharina Voigt]