Method, Matter, Practice, and Procedure

摘要

The clarion call for research in architecture academies and the profession sounded a century ago. From the 1930s onward, various ACSA and AIA published reports called for technical competency and the importance of applied research in architecture education.1 Although this issue of Technology | Architecture + Design (TAD) was not defined by a theme, authors were invited to reflect on research methods. The research culture of the early twenty-first century recognizes methods qua methods cannot be derived from the epistemic culture of the discipline but rather reflect how it is we see the world through the logics of our disciplines. We approached this issue hoping to tease out the specificity of method relative to the problem at hand in architecture. We traveled far to arrive on familiar territory. The peer review papers exemplify the idea of the integrity of method when developed from the particularity of a problem tested through a characteristically architectural approach: prototyping. Our Op/ Positions and Research Methodologies articles cover examples of various methodological types applied to architecture problems, like Christopher Pagano, Brian Day, and Leah S. Hartman on affordances from environmental psychology and Galen Cranz, Lusi Morhayim, Georgia Lindsay, and Johann (Hans) Sagan on post-occupancy evaluation from a social science perspective. Added to this are Peter Galison on methods in the history and philosophy of science and Michelle Addington speaking directly to authorship in research in the architecture academy. The mix proves quite stimulating as part of the ongoing discussion about methods in applied research in design and the built environment.