This paper, which is based upon a talk given to the Martin Centre Research Society at the Department of Architecture at Cambridge in October 1994, examines the continuing relevance of the model of architectural research which was proposed at the Oxford Conference on architectural education in 1958. It suggests that the Oxford model, with its roots in the procedures of the sciences, in which ‘fundamental’ research precedes ‘development’, before leading into practical application, fails to account for the role of the designer in the evolution of the state of architecture. It also proposes that developments in architectural education, in particular the growth of the unit system of studio instruction, have added a further element to the productive and investigative potential of the schools of architecture, and that this must be accounted for in any valid model of research.

The history of the relationship of studio teaching to research since the Oxford Conference has been one of babies thrown out with bathwater. Nearly 40 years on the need for research to underpin and invigorate the acts of designing is ever more keenly felt. This paper starts from a belief that the fruitful linkage of the two requires new approaches to both – that the past 40 years shows that it does not happen automatically. Designing is considered as a series of tangible acts where the nature of each operation affects not just the outcome of the project but also the intention of the designer. This puts a renewed emphasis on the means and tools of designing, on the need for operative theories which avoid reductivism and to explore the difficulty of transforming an intention into an architectural hypothesis.

Architects rely on conceptual models of users during the design process, but if these models are inadequate the buildings may fail to meet user needs. User research, carried out by architects themselves or by specialist researchers, can improve architects' understanding of user needs. The dissemination of specialists' research findings to practising architects is crucial. Examples of user research on five topics are summarised.

This paper is intended as a contribution to the discussion of the declared topic of this journal, architectural research. It stems partly from the author's book From Idea to Building and is mainly an analysis of the similarity between architectural design and scientific research based on Karl Popper's hypothetico-deductive theory, and in particular the sequence from problem recognition through tentative solution and error elimination to an explanation which may become the problem in the next sequence of research.

As funding for research in British universities is now dependent upon an assessment of research productivity (made every four years), departments of architecture are finding that design, which used to be considered as the equivalent of research for architectural teachers, may not be regarded as such for the purposes of this assessment. The arguments both for and against considering design as a research activity are discussed, as is the need for a recognised way of grading the quality of work. Suggestions are made for the direction in which design as research in schools of architecture might take.

For many years, architects in the United Kingdom have looked enviously at the competition system in the German speaking countries and Scandinavia. Now, with the introduction of a major public buildings programme partially funded by the new National Lottery, competitions are becoming more common in Britain. This paper opens with some reflections on the advantages and disadvantages of competitions. It then describes the conduct and outcome of a single Lottery-funded competition for the design of a building for which there were no precedents and in which issues of content and image were major preoccupations for both designers and assessors.

This paper reviews the relationship between architectural intent and constructional realisation in the work of the Edinburgh practice Richard Murphy Architects. It focuses on a small built project in Edinburgh, the conversion of a building in Royal Terrace Mews.

This paper looks at the case for studio design work taught in a unit system at Diploma/RIBA Part II level to be considered as a fundamental tool of research with a direct contribution to contemporary architectural practice. A case study of unit proposals for one year at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London and its subsequent adoption by practitioners is used to illustrate the discussion.

This essay explores the problem of creating a contemporary architecture for a rural setting with a strong indigenous character. It focuses on a series of three inter-related projects, designed by a team which includes the author, for the village of Calver in the Derbyshire Peak District. One of these projects, ‘The Orchard’ is presented in some detail to illustrate the investigation of an architecture that can be simultaneously cognisant of both broad cultural ideas and rooted to the specifics of a local cultural context.

This statement came to be written as an introduction to our proposal to ‘repair’ the urban design and city plan of Salerno, Italy. It was based on three sources: first, the inadequacy of town planning as an instrument to give form to the city, a proposal and experience already applied by Oriol Bohigas as city architect for Barcelona and later carried out by ourselves with the Olympic Village and Port; second, our vocation as architects to see a close relationship between the architecture of buildings and the architecture of the city so much so that many of our earlier buildings were conceived and assembled manipulating metaphors of urban reference and vice versa; third, as a result of working on urban designs in Cardiff and Breda, the text has been further modified to accommodate the different cultural problems involved in Northern European cities.

An account is given of the recently completed Wealden poolhouse, and an argument is made for embracing indeterminacy in language and architecture

Outside Sweden, Jan Gezelius is perhaps best known for three museums: the little migratory birds museum at Öland, 1961; the ethnographic museum at Stockholm, 1972–78; and the archaeological museum at Eketorp, 1977–82. Here he talks about his houses and his architectural ideals. This paper is a translated and edited version of part of an interview in Jan Gezelius edited by Claes Caldenby and Åsa Walldén and published by Arkitektur Förlag/Arkus in 1989.