Our Research
Our research looks beyond design as an aesthetic or technical object to the complex processes and practices that run through the development, adaptation and use of built environments.
Reflection of Chicago on the Cloud Gate
Unpacking design
Our interdisciplinary research agenda aims to unpack the production and consumption of buildings, public spaces, neighbourhoods, infrastructure and cities by following the co-evolution of design and the human, technological and ecological entities that compose built environments.
The research theme "unpacking design" is inspired by the frequently cited metaphor that the technical, social, economic, institutional, psychological "come as a package". This is to say that these factors can never be understood in isolation because they are intricately linked, they constantly react to each other or, in other words, they co-evolve. Much of our research is therefore trying to untie these bundles of factors that influence the final design of buildings, public spaces, infrastructures and cities. The results highlight the multiple and often competing demands on design by a wide range of stakeholders.
Following design
Drawing upon a wide range of social science methods, we seek to prise open the “black box” of finished buildings, spaces and infrastructures by following their adaptation to diverse social, political, economic and environmental challenges.
Our projects draw on various empirical case studies, covering fieldworks in architectural offices or studies of urban design and development processes, local communities and large metropolitan settings. We use a variety of interdisciplinary methods and fieldwork-based approaches to tackle design in the making, design networks and processes, design cognition and visualisation, urban artefacts, controversies and city dynamics, co-evolution of cities and technical networks, urban innovation and socio-technical change, negotiations in design and city planning, political and ethical issues in architecture, public reactions to technologies and innovation, etc.
Engaging design
Our research engages directly with the situated practices of designers, developers, planners, engineers, policy-makers, citizens and communities who develop, maintain, manage and use our built environments across geographical and cultural settings.
This is manifest by three aspects of our work.
Firstly, we are interested in the place in which design unfolds, recognizing thatall design is situated. Therefore context is not a mere backdrop to design, but is an important and integral factor that is central to understanding how actors develop and use built environments.
Secondly, our focus is diverse. We go beyond an interest in individual designers to capture a wide range of actors and the networks they shape. As such we also investigate the views and actions of developers, planners, engineers, policy-makers, citizens and communities.
Thirdly, engagement is central to our applied goal of contributing to a sustainable and socially inclusive design. We actively identify and take advantage of opportunities to engage with policy makers and the media, in order to inform, and sometimes challenge prevailing policy discourses and design practices.
