University of Queensland

On professional research

For a professional occupation like architecture, combining liberal arts and technical traits, and essentially developing practical experiments on the basis of multifaceted hypotheses, critical reflection on the results of the work produced, the strategies pursued, or the challenges encountered should be a natural part of its charter.

Within a fragmented, socially complex, demand-based industry that produces in small batches and is characterized by lack of operative autonomy, the ability to use indirect precedents in an informed way, to record patterns and evaluate alternatives, is set to affect the profession’s ability to learn about and respond to constraints, hurdles and opportunities – in place, across space or over time.

This requires a ‘scientific method’ disposition towards the experiments carried out, a disposition informed by genuine Cartesian doubt and open to robust and genuine technical disciplinary criticism.