Design Thinking and the Research Application Problem

Amin Mojtahedi (HGA)
Susan Foong (HGA Architects & Engineers)
Brian Schermer (Workshop Architects)

After 35 years, Weisman’s (1983) framing of ‘research application problems’ is still haunting the architectural research community: Practitioners’ common misconception of research as an accumulation of social facts ready to be applied, institutionalized separation of research and application, and the industry’s persistence in using the traditional positivist and empiricist mindset for explaining and generalizing complex social phenomena are yet among the key obstacles on the way of answering a half-century question: ‘How might we seamlessly integrate environmental design research into the practice of design?’ Yet, considering the longevity of this question, perhaps we have not been asking the right one.

Reframing the question’s core assumption, this paper suggests exploring a more generative inquiry: How might we offer an alternative to the research- application duality? This new framing recognizes that the “research application” itself is a problematic combination because it assumes that research is an activity accomplished separate from practice; that it needs to be later translated and applied.

In response to the new question, this paper attempts to frame ‘design thinking’ as a methodological alternative to the research-practice duality. We start by framing pragmatism as the philosophical worldview that presents analternative to the traditional positivist framework. Then we discuss how this philosophical tradition provides a foundation for action research as an approach for creating local knowledge that is useful to practice. And finally, we advocate for design thinking as a methodology which incorporates the element of design into action research and, therefore, seamlessly integrates researchers’ insights, practitioners’ expectations, and users’ needs in the context of projects. The paper concludes by sharing three design thinking examples to put the conversation in the context of real-world application.