Creation in Discovery: 'The Design Research Project' as an alternative scholarly paradigm to classic research teaching in undergraduate architectural education

Abstract

This proposal is to support enhancement, evaluation and supervisor training in a Final Year Design Research Project (FYDRP) course for the BSc Architectural Studies (BSAS). The monies will go towards developing materials and training workshops for FYDR Project supervisors, including conducting a small number of case studies, to monitor the development of the FYDRP, and to disseminate conclusions regarding how to manage teaching and scholarship of creative disciplines within research universities. The FYDRP is an innovative method of supporting student learning about 'design research", which is itself a paradigmatic shift in approaching scholarly research. After March (1976). science investigates, but design initiates. The FYDRP will replace the Final Year Project (FYP) as the capstone for BSAS undergraduates in the 2020/21 academic year. In the FYDRP, students are expected to produce both 'research' and 'design' outputs, which must be rigorously related. Design Research Projects that give equal priority to both 'classic' research concems such as familiarity with the literature' and 'research methodology, and design concerns, such as emphasis on 'context-specificity", "generative techniques' and 'design-critical ability", are unusual in undergraduate architectural education. The FYDRP will enhance the ambitions of the DEC by complementing Discovery' with its counterpoint, "Creation', as these are the two sides of the cycle of Knowledge generation; the FYDRP focuses equally on the architectural proposition as a "built hypothesis, and its testing, via the processes of systematic 'Discovery that is, 'research'. In line with CityU's mission to provide professional education, the FYDRP is a capstone format that increases the relevance of students' research to their professional design practice, without sacrificing academic rigour. Practically, this will tie together students' explicit knowledge and tacit skills acquired in preceding years, responding to a problem identified in student feedback of the Programme. It supports the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering's (ACE) enhancement of its Architecture Programmes. The funding sought is to support the creation of an intellectual foundation and training materials to support FYDRP supervisors, and to develop and test an evaluation protocol for the FYDRP. Finally and importantly, it will contribute to the ongoing dialogue in public research universities in Hong Kong about the role of creative disciplines such as Architecture within them.