Week 5 :Research Methodology and

Methods

1.Case Study Methodology (Design methods) 2.Historical interpretive methodology

Reading: Groat & Wang Chapters 6 & 12

Topic

How can culture be translated into architecture?

Vertical farming influences the way we live

Artists make better architects

Conduct a background study using literature on the topic

Your interest

Programme/School interests

Time/Resources/Do-ability 1. Do I know the field and the

literature well?2. What are the important

research questions in my field?

3. What are the areas need further exploration?

4. Could my research fill a gap? Lead to greater understanding?

5. Has a great deal of research already been conducted in this topic area?

6. Has this study been done before? If so, is there room for improvement?

Focused/WOW Research QuestionWhat you don’t know about your

topic

Research QuestionSubject/object of study/focus area

From Question

•History Research•Qualitative Research•Experimental Research•Correlational research•Simulation research•Logical Argumentation research•Case Study and Multi-methods approaches to research

1. Identify and describe the methodology suitable for your knowledge construction. Justify.

2. Breakdown your main Question to small questions/objectives, i.e. what you need to find out in order to achieve the RQ

3. For each objective list down the methods

1. Data required2. Source of data3. Data collection technique4. Data analysis

To MethodsTechniques of collecting and

analysing data

MethodologyStrategy of study

SYSTEM OF INQUIRY – PHILOSOPHICAL STANCE

METHODOLOGY-CHOICES FOR STRUCTURING RESEARCHSTRATEGIES-(RESEARCH DESIGN/METHODS) OVERALL

RESEARCH PLAN OR STRUCTURE OF THE RESEARCH STUDY`

METHODS/TECHNIQUES – DATA

COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

where ‘place’ took me…………….. veronica ng

Architectural meaning resides in human experience. It is

evoked in the acts of occupying and inhabiting

‘space’ and ‘place’

place as:

• A social-cultural construct• A reiterative process of cultural

practices• Lived experience/spirit of place

• Place versus space• Otherness of place

where place took me….

5th year design thesis:

How can we create places whilst maintaining an abstract/modernist way of design?

DWELLING VERSUS MACHINE

PhD: What is ‘place’?PhD:

If place is such a problematic term, why is it so?

Design Studio:

What sort of architecture do we create if emphasis is focused on ‘place’?

three + - ‘dwellings’ in…..system versus meaning: a dichotomy

5th year design thesis:

How can we create places whilst maintaining an

abstract/modernist way of design?

SYSTEM OF INQUIRY – PHILOSOPHICAL STANCE

METHODOLOGY- QUALITATIVE/CASE STUDIES AND MIXED METHODS RESEARCH DESIGN

METHODS/TECHNIQUES – DATA

COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

Significance:

Meaning to the user; methods for designer

Research Problem:

Crisis of modern science (Perez-Gomez)

Modernist space-making strategies are often cited as meaningless/non-place

Phenomenology of “Place” (Heidegger, Norberg-Schulz)

Research Question:

(INITIAL) How can we create places whilst maintaining an abstract/modernist way of design?

(REFINED) How “meaning of place” could be translated into the “meaning of a dwelling” by using a “technical system” as a design tool?

Through the design of 3 dwellings for a couple in 3 different locales

Observations on site

Comments of residents/user

Meaning of Place is conceptualised

Literature on:Translating meaning into architecture (Norberg-Schulz, John Hejduk)

Case study on design methods of space-making (modernist)Subtractive-additive space (Loius Kahn); proportions (Corbusier; Teragni)

analyse explore

Literature on:Meaning of place – Joseph Rykwert, Norberg-Schulz

Research methods:

Diagramming exploration

Proportions exploration

exploreThree dwellings

resolve

SUBTRACTION OF SOLIDS/VOIDS

SPACE WITIN SPACE/VOIDS WITHIN VOIDS

ADDITION OF SOLIDS

re-thinking place architecture and the histories of place

PhD:

If place is such a problematic term, why

is it so?

Current definition on place:Place as social and cultural constructs

Place as lived experiencePlace as power/ideology

Otherness of place

Why is place a problematic term?How was place conceptualized?

Historical research on the ideas of placeCollect historical artefacts to construct ideas of place at particular points in

historyTo inform current issues relating to the concept of place

Historyhis + storyHistory is a story of historical accountsHistory is imaginary-comprehensive

Values of historical research:It throws light on present and future trends.

It enables understanding of and solutions to contemporary problems to be sought in the past.

It can illuminate the effects of key interactions within a culture or sub-culture.

It allows for the revaluation of data in relation to selected hypotheses, theories and generalizations that are presently held about the past and the present.

data gathering evaluation narration

Historyhis + storyHistory is a story of historical accountsHistory is imaginary-comprehensive

1. Conceptualization of an idea, topic, or research question

2. Locate evidence and do background literature review

3. Evaluate evidence

4. Organize evidence

5. Synthesize evidence and develop general explanatory model

6. Develop a narrative exposition of the findings

Steps in historical research

Data Sources • Primary Sources:

– first-hand or eyewitness observations of phenomenon, manuscripts, newspaper records, documents, correspondences, photographs, artifacts, building, art, etc.

• Secondary Sources: – second-hand observation, i.e. the

author collected the data from eyewitnesses.

• Running Records– Statistics, gov’t data

• Recollections

“Historical Sources encompass every kind of evidence which human beings have left of their past activities – the written word and the spoken word, the shape of the landscape and the material artefact, the fine arts as well as photography and film.”

(John Tosh, The Pursuit of History, 1991, 30)

Hierarchy of SourcesHierarchy of Sources

■ Primary Sources – These are original sources produced during the period of interest. They are further divided into published and unpublished primary sources.

■ Secondary sources – These are what historians have written about the past (the historians may not be from out own time, e.g. they could be much closer to ‘the past’ they write about).

Interpretations of historyThe causal explanations of history: This strategy interprets history by isolating causal links and rendering behaviour of social phenomena as predictable.

 

History as the movement of absolute spirit, derived from the thought of the philosopher G.W.F. Hegel: The epistemological assumption of this strategy holds that history is the on-going evolution of a communal consciousness or mind (Geist, translated as ‘spirit’). Its basic tenet was that a form of universal reason existed behind the ‘surface’ forms of human knowledge. Thus the ‘progress of reason’ could be discerned working its way through history as an immaterial but ever-present ‘Geist’ or spirit.

 

Structuralism: This was derived from the thought of Claude Levi-Strauss who referred to history as causal history, and similarity in style is necessarily the result of physical contact. This strategy assumed that meaning arises from a structural system which is self-contained, self-regulating and self-transformative.

 

Post-structuralism: Post-structuralism is marked by a rejection of totalizing concepts which put all phenomena under one explanatory concept. It assumed 'reality' as being much more fragmented, diverse, thus it emphasised specific histories rather than total history. The historic era becomes the object-as-complex-reality, and an understanding of that reality consists of parsing the discourses that define it. The post-structuralist strategy of historical explanation does not explain a set of given conditions as obliged to previous conditions. Knowledge is governed by the rules of discourse for that area, and related to other texts.

 

SYSTEM OF INQUIRY –

METHODOLOGY-HISTORICAL INTERPRETIVE - POST-STRUCTURALIST

METHODS/TECHNIQUES –

SOURCES: TEXTS, VISUALS, FILMS, ARCHITECTURE

ANALYSIS: ANALYSIS AND NARRATIVE

History of ideasHistory as discontiuous

Collect historical artefacts to construct ideas of place at particular points in history

To inform current issues relating to the concept of place

place as a social construct: classification of places

The North Parade, Bath , John Wood

Bourse. Design by C.N. Ledoux An exemplar of classification of building type. Maison Ditalie, Par Palladio, in Receuil

Pattern book

place as an idealised landscape: history + constructed landscapes

Bird-eye view of Longleat. Copper engraving by Jan Kip after a drawing by Leonard Knyff

Landscape with St Matthew. By Nicholas Poussin

Plan and views of Chiswick House and gardens. Engraving by Jean Rocque

Front-piece to Laugier’s Essai sur l'architecture

place as a moral construct: good or bad?

place as perceptions: individual perceptions of place

Weaknesses1. Bias in interpreting historical sources. 2. Interpreting sources is very time consuming. 3. Sources of historical materials may be problematic 4. Lack of control over external variables

Strength1. The historical method is unobtrusive 2. The historical method is well suited for trend analysis. 3. There is no possibility of researcher-subject interaction.

The Challenge of Historical SourcesThe Challenge of Historical Sources■ Some historical research is ethnographic in nature,

such as oral history, which commonly involves talking to participants about their memories of the past.

■ But where social research involves studying the past that is beyond living memory, it is different from ethnography in that there is no direct access to the phenomena of interest.

■ An ethnographer writes his/her field notes after direct observation of social interaction. This means they are able to continually mould their ‘data’ and to select what is relevant during the observation/interaction itself.

■ It is very different with historical documents or ‘sources’ – you cannot interact with sources in the same way as living people.

► Therefore historical research can be very

labour-intensive compared to other methods of social research.

► Contrary to the view that historical research is ‘easy’ because it does not involve interacting with people, historical research is extremely challenging, involving long hours of sometimes painstaking work in

the isolation of the archive.

► Much of this work will produce nothing that will ever make it into the final research writing.

► So historical research requires better-than-average reserves of patience, dedication and perseverance.