Delft Lectures on Architectural Design and Research Methods

A compulsory course for all students starting their Master education in Architecture at TU Delft, the Lecture Series on Architectural Design and Research Methods ("Positions") highlights current disciplinary issues against the background of the larger societal conditions that have an impact on the architectural practice.

During the course you will be introduced to a series of notions that have influenced the production of architecture, particularly public architecture, in the course of the past seventy years. These notions suggest rather different approaches to understanding space, buildings, people, and their relations. With their different modes of inquiry, analytic and design instruments, as well as research methods, these notions pose different questions for architecture and attempt to tackle different issues. You will gain a comparative and systematic understanding of their differences and possible complementarities, so as to recognize the wider values of scientific research as linked to design practice. By applying these notions in a case study, you will establish an intellectual sensitivity to the relationship between research and design. In doing so you will  have to critically reflect on your own position within the larger knowledge systems of architectural practice.

The course is graded on the basis of four summative assignments corresponding to the four learning objectives. Each of them carries the weight of the final grade as follows:

 1. Close readings of relevant texts (20%), graded individually. The reading must critically reflect on the text, showing that you have understood its mainthesis and/or ideas and using one of them to expand the conversation on the notion under examination.

 2. Responses on the lecture material (30%) graded individually. The response must show a critical capacity to summarize points from the lecture’s content and respond to the posed question concisely, accurately and succinctly.

3. Work-in-progress slides on the case study (30%), graded individually. The slides must manifest an understanding of the case study and the notion under examination. They must manifest time spent studying, analyzing, and visiting the case study.

4. One conference presentation (20%), graded collectively. The presentation must show a coherent, well edited and clearly organized narrative on the case study, as it relates to the five notions under examination