Thesis Research Methods

Graduate architecture and interior architecture studies revolve around the Master’s Thesis. Beyond demonstrating professional competency (as in a comprehensive studio, for example), the Master’s Thesis provides a unique opportunity to explore an area of interest, articulate an intellectual ambition, envision its architectural specificity, and defend these publicly through rigorous research and argumentation. In short, the Master’s Thesis contributes to and advances the discipline through a year-long, self-driven research / design project. This course begins that process.

This course introduces graduate students to research methods specific to the architectural disciplines and challenges them to use these methods to develop clear research questions and an ambitious thesis proposal to be tested in the fall and spring thesis design studios. A central ambition of the course is to help students establish a research design: a clear plan of action to get from here (summer thesis prep) to there (spring thesis review), a research strategy that accounts for intellectual positions, disciplinary questions, systems of inquiry, analytical methods, and research / design tactics. The course unfolds as a series of interrelated lectures, discussions, critiques, writing exercises, workshops, and student presentations.

Thesis Research website here.