Architecture Research Methods ARCH 5365

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Architecture Research MethodsARCH 5365

• Gary W. Smith, 2006

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• Judge your readers or listeners, imagine who they
  are, what they like, what they know, and what
  they need and want. Then let that information
  shape what you write.
• Dont write above or below your readers
  intelligence.

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• YOUR ROLE
• Create a relationship with your reader that makes
  them want to read your reportstarting with the
  title.
• The key to a report here, or in the office, is
  not how much information you can collect, but
  rather how you interpret and analyze what you
  find.
• Remember that you are the expert as you probably
  know more than your reader. MDSI Program is no
  different and neither is your project.

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• Three kinds of relationships between the writer
  and the reader.
• Ive found something interesting i.e. historical
  facts.
• Ive found a solution to a practical problem
  important to you architectural issues related to
  construction, practice, office procedures.
• Shape your report around a specific intention
  that shapes your role to advise a reader about
  what he must do to solve his problem.
• Often applied research

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• Ive found an answer to a question important to
  you.
• Usually academic
• Research solves NOT a practical problem, but
  rather a conceptual problem.
• Pure research as opposed to applied research.
• Answers a question the readers want to understand
  better.

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• THE READERS ROLE (Related to the list above)
• Entertain me with something interesting I did not
  know.
• Help me solve a practical problem.
• Offer the solution with ONLY the facts to back it
  up
• Help me understand something better
• In all three, you must be objective, logical,
  faithful to the evidence and able to see the
  question from all sides.

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• Dealing with Inexperience
• Be aware that there are uncertainties and
  anxieties
• Get control over your topic by writing along the
  way
• Summaries
• Critiques
• Questions
• Break the process into manageable steps
• Good teachers (and supervisors) want you to
  succeed. ASK FOR HELP.
• Set realistic goals

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• The choice of a particular research design is
  framed by the researchers own assumptions about
  both the nature of reality and how one can come
  to apprehend it.
• Terms that describe these sets of assumptions
• System of inquiry
• Paradigm

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• Goals of Chapter 2, GW
• to provide a conceptual framework for
  understanding the range of paradigms used in
  architectural research
• to clarify the way in which standards for
  evaluating research quality are substantially
  dependent on the system of inquiry employed by
  the researcher

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• DICHOTOMOUS FRAMEWORK OF SYSTEMS OF INQUIRY
• Science
• Mathematical
• Atomistic
• Reductionist
• Convergent
• Involves
• Technology
• Engineering
• Behavioral issues

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• Mythic or poetic
• Continuous
• Holistic
• Divergent
• Generative
• Involves
• Architectural history
• Design theory

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• Ontological (ontology)
• Asks what are the fundamental categories of
  being?
• What is reality?
• What is?
• Specification of a conceptualization.
• Ontology is a description (like a formal
  specification of a program) of the concepts and
  relationships that can exist for an agent or a
  community of agents.
• Study of the categories of things that exist or
  may exist in some domain.
• It is the nature of reality.

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• Epistomological (epistemology)
• philosophy that deals with the nature, origin and
  scope of knowledge the science of knowing.
• Seeks ways to justify knowledge statements.
• Epistemology is the study of our method of
  acquiring knowledge.
• It answers the question, "How do we know?"
• It encompasses the nature of concepts, the
  constructing of concepts, the validity of the
  senses, logical reasoning, as well as thoughts,
  ideas, memories, emotions, and all things mental.
  
• It is the nature of knowledge, relationship
  between knower and would-be-known.

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Quantitative and Qualitative Paradigm Assumptions
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• Quantitativeobjective reality, researcher is
  independent of the subject of inquiry, a
  deductive process that seeks cause-and-effect
  explanations.
• vs.
• Qualitativesubjective reality, the researcher is
  interactive with the subject of inquiry, an
  inductive process of inquiry that seeks
  clarification of multiple critical factors
  affecting the phenomenon.

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• The author states that the dichotomous framework
  places the emphasis on distinctions at the level
  of tactics the techniques for gathering or
  interpreting evidence or data. Not always so
  clear.
• Could employ a combination of quantitative and
  qualitative tactics.

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• CONTINUUM FRAMEWORK FOR MULTIPLE SYSTEMS OF
  INQUIRY
• A range of approaches from Subjective to
  Objective (qualitative to quantitative), yet
  still based on two approaches.

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• TRIPARTITE CLUSTERS
• Based on Positivism/Postpositivism Naturalism
  and Emancipatory (and any combination of these
  approaches).
• Positivism naïve belief in a reality out there
  that can be fully known. Objective.
• Postpositivism belief in an out there reality
  that can only be known within some level of
  probability. Objective.

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• Naturalism multiple, socially constructed
  realities. Qualitative. Interpretive.
• Emancipatory includes critical theory, feminist,
  race-specific, participatory and transformative
  paradigms. Stresses the role that social,
  political, cultural, ethnic, and gender issues
  play in the social construction of reality.

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COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF QUALITY STANDARDS
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• Quality Standards For Emancipatory System
• Historical Situatedness takes into account the
  political, gender, ethnic and racial aspects of
  the setting under investigation
• Eroding Ignorance the extent to which the
  inquiry acts to erode ignorance and
  misunderstanding (makes explicit social,
  cultural, and physical dynamics that have
  previously gone unnoticed)
• Transformational Impulse transformative
  potential of the inquiry (seeks to provoke
  changes in the values, attitudes and practices of
  architecture)

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Notes

• Information in these lectures was adapted from
  the following sources
• Booth, Wayne C., Colomb, Gregory G., Williams,
  Joseph M. 2003. The Craft of Research. Second
  Edition. Chicago University of Chicago Press.
• Groat, Linda N. and Wang, David C. 2002.
  Architectural Research Methods. New York John
  Wiley.