Introducing research in architectural design teaching as a means to enhance the design learning process

What is important in architectural education? On the one hand, students learn about architecture itself; about designed buildings and surroundings. And on the other hand, they learn how to design architecture. The latter being the study of the process, while the first is the study of the product as a result of that process. A literature review of the design process brings up that being process-oriented, and not product-driven, is one of the most important skills while designing. But architecture students are also very interested in designed architecture as a result, as a product. So focusing on the process while forgetting the end product of it, seems a very difficult skill to develop. Integrating the design in a research project can counter this problem. Besides other advantages, like for example positioning the standpoint and the design of each student in a larger frame, the incorporation of the assignment in research also changes the true nature of the project. In fact, the focus shifts from solving a problem to doing research, and at the same time it alters from solution to process. In a specific case, we redefined an assignment for first year architecture students for a ‘townhouse’ and changed it into a ‘research on dense urban living’. The purposes of the new assignment, and at the same time the resulting documents, do not concentrate on a designed house as a result, but they focus on the student’s research as part of a larger investigation of ‘urban living’.status: publishe