Bernhard Böhm
former doctoral student

Until recently, university-based architecture has been regarded as a discipline with professionally oriented design education at its core. Architectural research was conducted in fields such as the social and engineering sciences. However, since the 1990s a growing number of architects have begun conducting ‘design research’, and an increasing amount of Master- and PhD programs offer research-based design education.
Against this background, this PhD project ethnographically examines cultures of design research in architecture in the USA and UK. The aim is to compare how design research is practiced and taught at different schools. Furthermore, this project asks how these research cultures are related to science policy making. It is important to study this political dimension, as design research is gaining attention within the context of a growing economization of western universities, that is characterized by the creation of markets for science, in which a high research performance is seen as a competitive advantage.

This dissertation is part of the project “Academizing Architecture: Design as Research Practice”, that is led by Monika Kurath, and jointly conducted with Philip Ursprung, gta, and Michael Hagner, Science Studies.