To apply and practice with a general framework for approaching research methods as technics. Upon completing this course, participants should be able to better situate their own method(s) within those applied by fellow researchers or practitioners in their own field as well as those in other fields who share the same object of research. The skills developed here will be particularly useful, not only for one’s own dissertation, but also for writing for and applying to academic conferences or journals, as well as peer-reviewing and situating the methods employed by other researchers.
This seminar course will be organized around bi-weekly discussions on a selection of published studies or scientific articles applying different research methods employed in architecture and urbanism. It will look at each method as an informational motor, which constitutes a ‘reservoir’ of data (or accounts, axioms, etc.) and ‘processes’ its contents in a formalized and systematic way. Rather than focus on methodology—the conventions by which particular methods are to be adopted and employed—the seminar will address how the methods are applied in different research contexts as technical tools of discovery. As tools, they can be invented or used in inventive ways. Participants, in reflecting upon their own research activities, will be asked to practice with the skills developed over the course of the semester in the writing of three abstracts to present their own application of methods in an international conference.
Course participants will develop three abstracts in English for conferences in their field. Depending on the conference, abstracts may be short (250 words) or longer (up to 1000). The exercise will serve to apply the general framework presented during the semester and to help participants present their research projects succinctly and with clarity.
This seminar is a companion course to Technics and Invention: Research Methods in Architecture and Urbanism. Although participation in this lecture course is not obligatory, the two are complimentary, with weekly lecture topics corresponding to the methods covered in the seminar course. Each course will alternate weeks and be held in the evenings. Language of discussion and semester work will be in English.
