LAND_601-602 Landscape Architecture Design V-VI: Thesis Studio

Research by design is a type of investigation that produces new knowledge about the world through the act of designing. Design is employed as a method of inquiry that generates outcomes through the testing of ideas, materials, and technologies. Innovative conceptual development is achieved through an iterative process that embraces the evolution and modification of ideas, and an accompanying exploration into cultural, social, economic, aesthetic, and ethical issues.

Students in this two-semester Thesis Studio develop a theoretically sophisticated understanding of landscape architecture through engagement in research by design. Participants undertake an individual research project that involves creating a new body of work within a theoretical context and then critically appraising their work and the framework that informed it.

Research by design is predicated on the proposition that design is research if—and only if—new things (concepts, techniques, strategies) are discovered by doing design; that is, by making things. For example, a student designing a riverfront precinct does not begin by conducting an exhaustive review of riverfront precincts around the world (though an awareness of precedents is necessary), but by designing, drawing, diagramming, and graphic mapping. 

Research by design is investigative rather than propositional. What is investigated is often multiple and unknown at the beginning of the project. Students must become comfortable with not knowing what they are doing. Along with the reversal of the professional design process, students must also deeply consider the theoretical dimension of their projects, which is primarily what distinguishes their design research from standard practice.

In the second semester, students continued the research started in the fall, developing an original body of work and an accompanying narrative that lays out and explains their research.