Research Approach

School of Architecture faculty advance disciplinary expertise in pursuit of effective global engagement with complex challenges of our designed environment. Faculty study how to design equitable communities and fair access to resources, how to achieve sustainable management of materials and energy, and how the design of buildings, landscapes, and cities change social and political dynamics. For this work, our faculty use diverse modes of investigation.

Many faculty lead award-winning design research practices that advance knowledge of the built environment by bringing diverse knowledge centers, stakeholders, and environmental contexts together through design projects. These faculty have produced internationally recognized buildings, installations, infrastructure, and city and regional plans and policies.

Our faculty have innovated research practices by combining archival research, interview techniques, material studies, and spatial analysis to investigate how complex socio-economic, political, and climatic forces shape what we build, and how what we build shapes these forces. Such research is consistently published around the world in books, journals, conference proceedings, and lectures, through the curation of international exhibitions and conferences, or by editing journals of architecture and design.

We also build cross-disciplinary bridges by fostering intellectual partnerships in public policy, marine sciences, civil engineering, environmental and health sciences, security, business, economics, real estate, and beyond.