Environmental Tectonics: Design Research Methods

This chapter intends to clarify and argue for the approach to re- search taken within the PhD thesis ‘Environmental Tectonics’ by elaborating on an architectural research methodology that is based on the objective of the thesis as described in the associated abstra- ct. Environmental sustainable architecture, with its broad scope, can be understood differently from the perspective of natural and engineering sciences’ intense delimiting into quantitative isolated research inquiries and from the humanistic perspective of inclusi- ve qualitative inquiries. The research design approach is therefore broad in character. However, there is a need for speci city to allow concrete methods of testing, as is central to scienti c production. With this in mind, a research position is stated below, which is advanced into a research design. The research design integrates methods and models from the sciences and humanities, with the attempt to address the two objectives of the project being an ar- chitectural theoretical framework and a speci c set of applied met- hods and models. The outline of the research methods illustrates a mixed-model approach, including theoretical-conceptual research into design, methodological-instrumental research for design and experimental-hypothetical research through design (Frayling 1993). Speci c research inquiries within the thesis are approached accor- ding to the research method considered most suitable.