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]