Changeability and Decision-making in the product development process

The aim behind this publication is twofold. First of all this is an attempt to reflect upon the nature of the knowledge that currently is being produced in the different PhD projects hosted at the Department of Architecture, Design and Media Technology, Aalborg University. During some years now the PhD research has been organized within the Architecture and Design PhD Lab (ADPL). Now the time has come to put the pen to paper and actually reflect across a wide range of very diverse types of architecture and design research projects. Secondly, the aim is to show this research and in particular its epistemological basis to the external world. By this is partly meant the rest of the research environment at the Department of Architecture, Design and Media Technology. But obviously also to the many research networks and professional contacts that collaborate with the Department. Amongst such ‘external’ target groups are also students of Architecture, Design and Media Technology here at Aalborg University and elsewhere. The individual contributions has been written by the PhD students and then discussed in the ADPL forum. There is a common structure to all of the contributions. Thus they take a stance on the following issues: project title and author, the research question, the methods applied, the theories consulted (or the state-of-the-art theory horizon), and the epistemology of the PhD research itself. Seen this way one could argue that each PhD student was asked two fundamental questions. Firstly, what sort of methods and theories are in the field external to your project? Secondly, what sort of knowledge contribution is your project an example of? Needless to say such questions are very complex and need much more attention to be fully dealt with. However, starting up this reflection it is my firm conviction that the PhD candidates slowly but gradually increase their awareness of issues and questions that take even experienced researchers a long time fully to contemplate (if ever).
Ole B. Jensen