GSMD 511: Design Research Methods II

The discourse within and about methods in design has become a highly active and fertile field. Students will enter into the discourse about practice through exposure to the theoretical literature, as well as through the research about designing. The objective will be to develop a personal capacity to use design methods systematically to generate superior insight and understanding of problem spaces and solution potentials from both the need side and the affordance side. The student will learn to merge design methods within their thesis project work plan. Familiarity with the range of approaches (methodology) will permit the student to develop the particular framework, tools and procedures (methods) that can realize the type of knowledge he or she is pursuing. The development of these means will flow directly into the end deliverables that constitute the student's program, in particular the thesis project and its exposition. The design methods developed in this course describe the path that the student is taking in the thesis project. The writing and diagramming of that path will be a major part of the written exposition that complements studio production in the mediums of choice.