Architectural practice and academic research. (original) (raw)

Academic Research in Areas of Design Practice: Architecture

The project considers the existence of a sub-group of academic research that is particular to areas of design practice: Practice-based Research (PbR). This sub-group is recognized in Europe but is not universally recognised elsewhere, and it has raised a number of discussions about the best way of approaching the outcomes that are considered, within the dominant models of academic research, to be non-traditional. The issue of PbR in architecture is being considered in a comparative study of Swedish and Brazilian cases, in which a critical analysis of the production of doctoral theses that were completed from 2000 to 2005 in those two countries are being studied. The sample comes from theses on architecture that were produced in that period in the Swedish universities of Lund, Stockholm and Göteborg, and FAUUSP in São Paulo, Brazil. A method for identifying and evaluating PbR is being developed in the first phase of this Swedish governmentfunded international collaborative project.

Architectural research and disciplinarity

Architectural Research Quarterly, 2005

There are at present considerable concerns with how architectural research will be assessed in the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) of 2008. In RAE 2001, most architectural research was submitted to one of three Units of Assessment (UoA): 33 Built Environment, 60 History of Art, Architecture and Design, and 64 Art and Design. There were subtle, but important, differences in output definition and assessment criteria between UoA 33 and UoA 64 with respect to practice-led research. Most importantly, in UoA 33 practice-led outputs were accepted by the panel, but only as publications, whereas UoA 64 assessed practice-led research outputs accompanied by a 300-word statement that clarified the contributions of that particular research to the development of original knowledge in the field. The diversity of methods and complexity of output types, combined with the composition of UoA 33, led to results that many feel did not properly reflect the strengths of architectural design, particular...

A Critical Mapping of Practice-Based Research as Evidenced by Swedish Architectural Theses

In 2005 the Swedish government passed a Bill that broadened the scope of the Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) to include the creative and performing arts. The Bill Research for a Better Life was the response to a three-year experimental period of ring-fenced funding in areas of national interest. In 2006 the initiatives by Vetenskapsrådet (which included funding Biggs as one of four international visiting professors in so-called practice-based research hosted in Sweden) were the subject of a quality review. The commissioning of this review showed the concern at a national level with the potential competitive advantage of establishing and exploiting a category of academic research in the creative industries (CI). Interestingly, architecture is included in these areas, unlike

Research as a Driving Force for Change: On Triadic Practice in Architecture

Research as a driving force for change: on triadic practice in architecture 15 Fig.1: Cover of doctoral thesis of Nel Janssens Research as a driving force for change: on triadic practice in architecture The firsT docToral alumni aT sinT-lucas anno 2012 Our engagement in research education at Sint-Lucas School of Architecture began in 2006, and, to be honest, our first encounter with the research culture at the school was not an entirely easy one (see Dunin-Woyseth and Nilsson 2006). Since then, we have had the opportunity to follow the emergence of a very interesting environment and culture of research (Dunin-Woyseth and Nilsson 2011), which, crucially, also includes teaching and professional practice. Julia Williams Robinson has written that architecture is "an emerging discipline that involves professional practice, research, and teaching." She continues, "The character and effects of its products-disciplinary knowledge, the forms of disciplinary practices, architectural artifacts-are the responsibility of those within the field. Academics, researchers, and professional practitioners are thus jointly responsible to society and each other" (Robinson 2001, 62). While closely following the emergence of such a scholarly culture, we have also observed how these different practices have become integrated into each other, to become one and the same. Emerging ever more quickly and deeply, this culture has begun to make its mark at Sint-Lucas. In 2012, seven teachers at the school of architecture were awarded the degree of Philosophiae Doctor (PhD).

Architecture & Research: a possible structure

This article results from three conferences organized by the research project titled "Architectural research framework" developed by the research center Architectural Lab – LabART – of the Lusófona University, and also by my personal experiences and dialogs with other members of the EAAE research committee. Architectural research always existed, but only recently some major questions have emerged, by the time that Europe started the last universitary reform on the 80's. Two aspects are crucial in understanding the problematic that we are referring to. On the one hand we verify that the architectural teaching should maintain the articulation and close relationship between the theoretical and practical aspects. On the other hand, there is a need to confer academic degrees, as the MsC and PhD's in the Faculties of Architecture. Inevitably, discussions began about the scientificity of architecture (its grounding), the types of research, methodological models, as well a...

Two issues concerning research in the field of architecture

SCIRES-IT : SCIentific RESearch and Information Technology, 2020

This article covers considerations formulated some years ago, following the process of evaluating the quality of research in the area of architecture, drawing attention to two issues. The first is that of conformism (or "increasingly similar research"). The second is that of reconfiguring new or renewed relationships between academic critical reflection and professional and design practice. Both issues are relevant in the field of architecture.

Architectural Practice and Academia: the Praxis and Theory continuum

Changing Trends in Architectural Education

This paper will problematise the contemporary fundamental distinction between architectural profession (practice) and architectural education (academia). The common understanding sees these two domains as separate, disconnected and even in opposition in the arena of architectural conduct. This common notion usually affiliates professional practice with the concept of praxis and academic education with the concept of theory. In this situation, one could suggest that professional practice and academia become the limits of a continuum; at one end, professionals disparaging academia seeing it as theoretical, abstract and removed from everyday practice, while academics disparage practice, thinking of it as a banal, anti-intellectual and base application of theoretical concepts. Returning to the origins of the concepts of praxis and theory, this paper attempts to re-address their problematic by finding threads of connection within the context of architecture. Aristotelian Ethical tradition situates three kinds of ethical activities (energeíai), in order of importance: theoria, poiésis and praxis. Aristotle, in privileging theory over practice, established the foundation of our current polemic. Through a greater understanding of the roles and relationships of each of these activities it becomes clear that none works in abstraction from the other. In these terms, if we accept theoria (theory) as the pursuit of truth and knowledge for its own sake through contemplation, and practice (praxis), as a pursuit for knowledge and creation through ‘making’, we can begin to understand more clearly how a shifted notion of theory relates to praxis. So, far from being in opposition to theory, practice has an inseparable relationship with it. Architectural practice is not merely the doing of something, but rather a considered, creative, dialectical act of creation fully engaged in the pursuit of truth and knowledge. This conflation of practice and theory is examined through an analysis of studio teaching and student projects at the first-year level at the Architecture School at the University of Edinburgh in 2005/06, where the authors are Course Organiser and Tutors. Using studio projects as key studies, we will test the teaching and learning procedures that reflect the notions of theory and practice that appear in design education. Ongoing ethnomethodological study of these projects through interviews; video and audio recordings from the tutorials and the reviews; photos of the drawings, sketches and models made during the design process; and the experience of participant observation as teachers - contrasted with our experience in professional architectural practice - illustrate a fresh interrelation between practice and theory. By moving along the continuum between architectural academia and practice, we will explore the space between the extremes of the Aristotelian theoria and praxis.