Methods in Architectural Research is an advanced research seminar aimed at PhD and MS students which introduces means, methods, types, and values typical of architectural research. This ?Methods? course (which is also open to M.EBD and M. Arch students) speaks to the ?how? and ?why? of research. It investigates how one identifies a field of enquiry, what are the questions of value to the field, the various methods, strategies, and tactics of engagement representative of the field, as well as the critical knowledge needed in communicating one?s results. The architectural profession is largely predicated on studio-based practices and yet the larger discipline?as defined in post-professional programs, doctoral studies, think tanks, research centers, and labs?participates in multiple forms of enquiry whose investigative protocols and metrics of excellence are often borrowed from both the humanities and the sciences. Why therefore, do we hardly ever engage in this form of knowledge production in professional schools of architecture? Architecture?s destiny is to be a form of composite knowing, in which both qualitative and quantitative methods of enquiry are needed in delimiting its research horizons. As such, students in Methods in Architectural Research are introduced to a spectrum of methods inclusive of the arts, design, theory, history, social sciences, environmental sciences, building science, and engineering. Whether architects reflect, theorize, analyze, or test ideas; whether they construct, build artifacts, simulate environments, develop software, or cull data, they do so by implementing research processes and by communicating their results using verifiable reporting mechanisms. The seminar introduces, discusses, and reviews the full spectrum of research methods typical of the discipline with the goal of having students design the research process for their respective Dissertations.
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