Design Research

Pedagogies 2020

Given the mission-defining societal challenges of climate change, artificial intelligence, and social justice outlined in Pedagogies 2020, the question of the Design Research pedagogy is an operative one — How do we work on these topics in the School of Architecture? 

Challenges & Opportunities

“The natural sciences are concerned with how things are. Design, on the other hand, is concerned with how things ought to be…”

Herbert A. Simon in “The Science of Design: Creating the Artificial” (MIT Press, 1988)

Addressing the how of design research implies other important questions as well: 

• What types of knowledge need to be produced, analyzed, and imagined in order to gain traction with these complex concerns? 

• Where can architecture contribute to the incremental, multidisciplinary work of research through design and design thinking? 

• Who are our partners in this work and how can collaboration both expand the external impact of design research while also challenging architecture’s internal frameworks?

To address design research is to confront architecture’s disciplinary tensions. Historically, architectural education has been split across the disparate domains of art and applied science. In American universities, roughly half of all architecture programs are housed in art departments while the others are part of engineering programs and technical schools. This productive conflict between the analytical and deductive modalities of the sciences and the projective creativity of the arts is a defining hallmark of the discipline. This disciplinary instability is also an asset in the contemporary research landscape, where interdisciplinary teams of varied expertise must communicate across multiple epistemological frameworks. 

In addition to exploring the implications of research-through-design, the School of Architecture can contribute to the research-of-design. The complex nature of producing architecture requires greater collaboration between architects, engineers, manufacturers, builders, clients, and communities. For any design innovation to be relevant and sustainable, it must be built on interdisciplinary research that considers appropriate societal frameworks relevant to the issues at hand. While the process of architectural design is projective, it must rely on analysis and evidence that helps us become more thoughtful actors in the world.

Matters of Concern

Cutting across historical CMU SoA Silos
How can CMU SoA reframe our collective research work around new categories that more accurately reflect the contemporary research landscape and SoA’s emerging mission? Over the past decades, CMU SoA has built a reputation for leadership in the domains of sustainable design, computational design, and urban/public interest design. This reputation is built on a collective body of cutting edge research and the distributed impact of stellar graduates, especially from the school’s distinct MS and PhD programs. Over time, these core silos have transitioned from early disciplinary disruptors to a now ubiquitous cornerstone of core practice. In addition, the current research interests of faculty and students at CMU SoA have become increasingly varied. Research approaches are diverse, drawing from the hard and social sciences, the humanities, and the arts. These efforts are applied in multiple contexts, including industry R&D, academic scholarship, professional practice, design/build, and museum exhibition/curation. We must reframe our collective efforts around these multiple categories, methods, and knowledges. 

Intersection of research and teaching at SoA
How can design research enhance the student experience at CMU SoA? Whether experimenting in the classroom, working as research assistants, developing a thesis project, or participating in internships, undergraduate and graduate students can enhance the culture of research at SoA. By introducing multiple research methods in the curriculum, design research highlights the limits of disciplinarity where design questions research and research questions design. As we educate the next generation of design professionals, industry innovators, and discipline leaders, what skills will they need to work on architecture’s core challenges and opportunities?

Building partnerships and collaborations
How can CMU SoA strategically build partnerships across the university, the Pittsburgh region, and around the globe? Given the increasingly complex and multi-disciplinary makeup of professional practice and academic research, collaboration is a core competency for architects. In addition to academia, our partners come from industry, foundations, government agencies, cultural institutions, and community organizations. Collaboration has the potential to both expand architecture’s impact and relevance in the world and to encourage critical reflection of architecture’s own internal values, operative logics, and knowledge domains.

Design Research Stocktaking

EVENTS & SCHEDULE

Coordinators

The following faculty members are the coordinators for the Design Research pedagogy.