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Academic Research in Architecture: what methods, objects and theories?

The study of buildings and cities does not belong only to architects and urban planners. The number of students in PhD programs in architecture coming from related disciplines (sociology, history, geography, engineering, etc.) attests to the multidisciplinary nature of research on the built and natural environments. Confronted by a multitude of theoretical and methodological traditions,
modes of output and dissemination, architects undertaking PhD studies may feel they have to
become political scientists, sociologists or engineers in order to properly frame the phenomena that they are investigating. Other disciplines find researchers with a background in architecture borrowing from their scientific traditions. This raises the following questions: What is research in architecture? Can it stand alone or does it rely on being an amalgamation of other fields? If other disciplines seem to have a longer tradition of studying the built environment, what original
contribution can architects make to research? This seminar—intended as much for non–architects as architects—will provide a forum for students to collectively discuss and debate these questions.
Discussions will be accompanied by presentations by students of their working responses to these questions and how they deal with them in their work as well as by more experienced researchers from various fields whose interventions will serve to frame the following debate.
Learning objectives

-To collectively identify and visually represent the (dis)connections between the participants’
objects of research, the methods of investigation they use and the theories upon which they
base their mode of inquiry.
- To recognize the diversity of positions taken by doctoral students in their work.

Structure:

Students in groups A and B are asked to arrive to the course with a schematic diagram showing the different connections between their objects, theories and methods of research. This diagram will be necessary for the initial diagramming exercise on the first day. Each afternoon will contain a diagramming session in which all students will participate. Three students from Group B will take notes on the presentations and discussions of one day each of the three and submit a minimum one page summary of the outcomes of the morning presentations and afternoon workshops. The remaining students are asked to prepare a 15-minute presentation delivering their own stance on the questions raised by the seminar theme as well as a 250-word abstract to be submitted to program moderator, Shady Attia (shady.attia@epfl.ch) at the latest by Tuesday, November 5th, at
5pm.