What is the role of design research in the types of insight and knowledge that architects create? That is the central question raised by this book. It acts as the introductory overview for Ashgate’s major new series, ’Design Research in Architecture’ which has been created in order to establish a firm basis for this emerging field of investigation within architecture. While there have been numerous architects-scholars since the Renaissance who have relied upon the interplay of drawings, models, textual analysis, intellectual ideas and cultural insights to scrutinise the discipline, nonetheless, until recently, there has been a reluctance within architectural culture to acknowledge and accept the role of design research as part of the discourse. However, in many countries around the world, one of the key changes in architecture and architectural education over the last decade has been the acceptance of design as a legitimate research area in its own right and this new series provides a forum where the best proponents of architectural design research can publish their work. This volume provides a broad overview on design research that supports and amplifies the different volumes coming out in the book series. It brings together leading architects and academics to discuss the more general issues involved in design research. At the end, there is an Indicative Bibliography which alludes to a long history of architectural books which can be seen as being in the spirit of design research.

A practical guide to research for architects and designers—now updated and expanded! From searching for the best glass to prevent glare to determining how clients might react to the color choice for restaurant walls, research is a crucial tool that architects must master in order to effectively address the technical, aesthetic, and behavioral issues that arise in their work. This book's unique coverage of research methods is specifically targeted to help professional designers and researchers better conduct and understand research. Part I explores basic research issues and concepts, and includes chapters on relating theory to method and design to research. Part II gives a comprehensive treatment of specific strategies for investigating built forms. In all, the book covers seven types of research, including historical, qualitative, correlational, experimental, simulation, logical argumentation, and case studies and mixed methods. Features new to this edition include: Strategies for investigation, practical examples, and resources for additional information A look at current trends and innovations in research Coverage of design studio–based research that shows how strategies described in the book can be employed in real life A discussion of digital media and online research New and updated examples of research studies A new chapter on the relationship between design and research Architectural Research Methods is an essential reference for architecture students and researchers as well as architects, interior designers, landscape architects, and building product manufacturers.

Forty years on from the first moon landing, architecture in Space is entering a new era. Over the last decade, there has been a fundamental shift in the Space industry from short-term pioneering expeditions to long-term planning for colonisation, and new ventures such as Space tourism. Architects are now involved in designing the interiors of long-term habitable structures in Space, such as the International Space Station, researching advanced robotic fabrication technologies for building structures on the Moon and Mars, envisioning new 'space yachts' for the super-rich, and building new facilities, such as the Virgin Galactic 'Spaceport America' in New Mexico designed by Foster + Partners. Meanwhile the mystique of Space remains as alluring as ever, as high-profile designers and educators – such as Greg Lynn – are running designs studios drawing upon ever more inventive computational design techniques. This issue of AD features the most significant current projects underway and highlights key areas of research in Space, such as energy, materials, manufacture and robotics. It also looks at how this research and investment in new technologies might transfer to terrestrial design and construction. Space architects: Constance Adams, Marc Cohen, Ondrej Doule, Sandra Häuplik-Meusburger, Scott Howe, Brent Sherwood, Madhu Thangavelu, Andreas Vogler, Robert Zubrin. Architects: Bevk Perovic Arhitekti, Dekleva Gregoric Arhitekti, Foster + Partners, Neil Leach, Greg Lynn, OFIS architects, SADAR + VUGA.

The job description of the architect has fundamentally changed with the emergence of a globalized society, and it will continue to do so in the future. Already today, the demands of the job no longer correspond to the profile on which classical architectural training is based. In this context, the question that arises is no longer that of the building alone, but also that of a changed approach to building and new pathways within design itself. This is where Explorations comes in: internationally celebrated authors, all of whom are professors as well and hence directly involved in the processes they describe, address the principal topics of contemporary architectural research. Taking the works of their own design studios as examples (Eidgen ssische Technische Hochschule ETH] Z rich Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich]: Marc Ang lil, Fabio Gramazio/Matthias Kohler; Ecole Polytechnique F d rale de Lausanne EPFL, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne]: Harry Gugger, Dieter Dietz), they offer concrete discussions of those topics and place them in the context of applied research and practice. Short and accessible essays on the most important architectural movements of the twentieth century clarify the relationship between the subjects discussed and canonical architectural research. Reto Geiser is an architect who studied at the Eidgen ssische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Z rich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich) and Columbia University in New York. As the William Muschenheim Fellow and a lecturer in architecture and design, he spent the 2003-2004 academic year at the University of Michigan (USA). He is currently a doctoral candidate at the Institut gta (Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture) at the ETH Z rich. In addition to his academic work, Reto Geiser also works on projects at the shared frontiers of architecture, installation, and visual culture. In Basel, he is director of the series Standpunkte: Informelle Gespr che zur zeitgen ssischen ArchitekturKultur (Points of View: Informal Conversations on Contemporary Architecture/Culture). Geiser is currently curating the Swiss contribution to the XI Biennale of Architecture in Venice. The exhibition at the Swiss Pavilion of the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale is merely intended as a springboard for further study of the subject.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Preface -- Foreword: Reinventing Nature -- Acknowledgments -- Part I Design Research in Practice: Methodology and Approach with Historical Precedents and Case Studies -- 1 Bioconstructivisms -- Trans-Disciplinary Research Practice: Contemporary Case Studies -- 2 Design Research in Practice: A New Model -- Part II Design Computation Tools for Architecture and Science: New Tools and Forms -- Introduction to Design Computation Tools for Architecture and Science: New Tools and Forms -- 3 Networking: Elasticity and Branching Morphogenesis -- Comments on the Role of the Matrix -- New Architectural Concerns -- 4 Motility: Adaptive Architecture and Personalized Medicine -- Topologically Free Cells -- Avoiding Biomimicry -- Visualizing in Another Dimension -- Positioning Mechanism -- Newness -- 5 Surface Design: The Mammary Gland as a Model of Architectural Connectivity -- On Geometry and Cellular Mechanics -- Biological Data and Intuition -- Case Study: Understanding Behavioral Rule Sets through Cell Motility -- Case Study: Motility and the Observation of Change -- Case Study: Microfabrication: Spatializing Cell Signaling and Sensing Mechanisms -- 6 BioInspired Materials and Design -- Part III Architectural Prototyping: Human-Scale Material Systems and Big Datascapes -- 7 The New Science of Making -- 8 Matter Design Computation: Biosynthesis and New Paradigms of Making -- Project: Branching Morphogenesis, 2008 -- Project: Ground Substance, 2009 -- Workshop: Nonlinear Systems Biology and Design, 2010 -- Part IV Personalized Architecture and Medicine -- 9 eSkin: BioInspired Adaptive Materials -- 10 myThread Pavilion -- Interview: RE(IN)FORM(ULAT)ING Health Care via Medicine + Creativity -- Conclusion -- Notes on Contributors -- Image Credits -- Index

Today’s design professionals are faced with challenges on all fronts. They need not only to keep in step with rapid technological changes and the current revolution in design and construction processes, but to lead the industry. This means actively seeking to innovate through design research, raising the bar in building performance and adopting advanced technologies in their practice. In a constant drive to improve design processes and services, how is it possible to implement innovations? And, moreover, to assimilate them in such a way that design, methods and technologies remain fully integrated? Focusing on innovations in architecture, this book covers new materials and design methods, advances in computational design practices, innovations in building technologies and construction techniques, and the integration of research with design. Moreover, it discusses strategies for integrating innovation into design practices, risks and economic impacts. Through numerous case studies, it illustrates how innovations have been implemented on actual architectural projects, and how design and technical innovations are used to improve building performance, as well as design practices in cutting-edge architectural and engineering firms. Projects of all scales and building types are discussed in the book, ranging from small-scale installations, academic and commercial buildings to large-scale mixed-use, healthcare, civic, academic, scientific research and sports facilities. Work from design firms around the globe and of various scales is discussed in the book, including for example Asymptote Architecture, cepezed, CO Architects, Consarc Architects, FAAB Architektura, Gerber Architekten, HOK, IDOM-ACXT, MAD Architects, Morphosis Architects, SDA | Synthesis Design + Architecture, Studiotrope, Perkins+Will, Richter Dahl Rocha & Associés, Snøhetta, Rob Ley Studio, Trahan Architects, UNStudio and Zaha Hadid Architects, among many others.

Architectural discourse and practice are dominated by a false dichotomy between design and chance, and governed by the belief that the architect’s role is to defend against the indeterminate. In Architectures of Chance Yeoryia Manolopoulou challenges this position, arguing for the need to develop a more creative understanding of chance as aesthetic experience and critical method, and as a design practice in its own right. Examining the role of experimental chance across film, psychoanalysis, philosophy, fine art and performance, this is the first book to comprehensively discuss the idea of chance in architecture and bring a rich array of innovative practices of chance to the attention of architects. Wide-ranging and through a symbiotic interplay of drawing and text, Architectures of Chance makes illuminating reading for those interested in the process and experience of design, and the poetics and ethics of chance and space in the overlapping fields of architecture and the aleatoric arts.

"The process of investigation, analysis, and testing makes Architecture Research Office (ARO) as much a laboratory as a design firm. For Stephen Cassell, Adam Yarinsky, and their team, the starting point of each commission is not the development of an abstract "idea" for the project, but an intensive, hands-on occupation with a project's conditions, with its physical, economic, and social contexts. This practical approach to making architecture, to shrinking the distance between thinking and building, is much evident in their work, which manages to be simultaneously thoughtful and sensual." "The seven projects featured in this, the first monograph on the work of this firm, range from self-directed research (ARO's paper wall project), to private living spaces (the SoHo Loft), to commercial interiors (the Qiora Store and Spa), to the popular U.S. Armed Services Recruiting Station in Times Square, to the stunning Colorado House in Telluride. All of these projects challenge design conventions, while delighting the senses with their unusual materials, careful detailing, and unexpected spatial discoveries." "With essays by Stan Allen, Philip Nobel, Guy Nordenson, and Sarah Whiting."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

A practical, single-source guide to successful strategies for landscape architecture research As the scope of landscape architecture expands to engage with other disciplines, and streams of information directing this field continue to grow and diversify, it becomes increasingly important for landscape architects to be able to implement a range of effective research strategies when seeking, creating, and validating knowledge. Landscape Architecture Research offers a framework for advancing better design thinking solutions by supplying readers with a system of inquiry tactics that open up a wider range of research possibilities. With a logical and innovative approach that favors legitimacy of knowledge based on collective, grounded practices, rather than strict adherence to protocols drawn only from scientific models, this comprehensive, illustrated guide produces a sound argument for establishing a new paradigm for legitimizing research quality. Landscape Architecture Research presents: Case studies that show how the range of presented research strategies have been successfully used in practice New perspective on the relationship between theory, research, practice, and critique, a relationship that is specific to landscape architecture Detailed coverage of the ways that new knowledge is produced through research activities and practical innovations in landscape architecture The first and only book on this topic of growing importance in landscape architecture, Landscape Architecture Research keeps professionals and students in step with the latest developments in landscape architecture, and delivers a dynamic and flexible game plan for verifying the integrity of their work.