This is a core course aimed at informing students of the range of research methods appropriate to the understanding and design of the built environment. It is intended to assist them in the development of their Workbook Assignments, Graduate Projects, Design Studio Investigations, or Dissertations. Given the complex array of design interrelationships between people and their physical, ecological, economic, socio-spatial and cultural environments which need to be considered by the responsible practitioner, the course ranges widely across applied research strategies from observation and simulation of buildings and cities to material analyses, building physics, post occupancy evaluation and statistical verification. Historical, theoretical, empirical and phenomenological approaches are elaborated, and both qualitative and quantitative methods addressed.

This course is taken in conjunction with the SUSD0006 Design Research Methods FBE masters level course.