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There has been a recently growing interest by architects in practice-based research and the impact of research. At the same time, several post-graduate architecture programmes with practice-led research agendas were founded. This shift towards architectural design research is analysed using the notions of “process-driven research”, “output-driven research” and “impact”. The study aims to investigate and unveil the link between graduate programmes and graduates with a research interest and to test the tripartite model of “process-driven research”, “output-driven research” and “impact” in the context of small architectural practices.

The study uses a qualitative and exploratory research approach that includes 11 in-depth interviews conducted in 2020, during the first nationwide COVID-19 lockdown in the United Kingdom (UK) selected interviews were architects representing (1) members or alumni of practice-related graduate architecture programmes in London and (2) founders of London-based small architectural practices within the last decade.

While focussing on the London context, the paper offers transferable insights for the key potentials of practice-led design research in small architectural practices and the actions that might improve research practice.

This paper addresses a lack of studies on how design research differs between diverse types and sizes of architectural firms, why emerging small architectural practices increasingly engage with research and how this shapes their practice. This knowledge is important to fully understanding architectural design research and its strengths or weaknesses.

The combination of mobile devices and innovative tools offers new possibilities for the development of a community of practice for design makers. Mobile learning has become an essential method that design makers should adopt. The main content of this study is to explore the characteristics of learning behaviors and learning needs of creative design makers' group in forming a community of practice in the era of mobile learning.

This study conducted questionnaire research on the potentially associated or directly associated population of design makers. The process of the study also combined observational and interview studies to compensate for the lack of questionnaire research.

Based on the support of mobile learning technology, design makers share and co-create to achieve individual development and evolution of learning organizations, and produce creative value. Design-maker communities of practice form common communities in the framework of informal organizations to support continuous individual learning. Convergent interests or concerns in making things, real-world contexts based on makerspaces and hands-on practice based on real projects are the basis for forming design-maker communities of practice. A variety of open-source hardware, software and platforms that can support mobile learning are important for the development of design-maker communities of practice. The design-maker community of practice needs group factors, activity development, physical and technical resources, spatial support and institutional norms to enhance learning behaviors and satisfy learning needs.

The discovery and construction of these associated factors can help creative design practitioners form a lasting and virtuous organizational development. This study facilitates the formation of a social network for learning and knowledge sharing among design-maker communities of practice. It enhances the innovation ability and enthusiasm of design makers according to the population characteristics and learning needs of design makers. This study also facilitates the generation of a positive adaptive maker culture and maker spirit within design maker organizations.

Art and design has recently seen considerable growth in PhD studies and in the UK the sector has been at the forefront in developing practice‐based doctorates. There is an ongoing debate about the nature and quality of these PhDs. There are residual confusions about practice and research, and wide variations in requirements across universities. In the UK, design has a long tradition of vocational education arising from well respected art schools, which for the most part have been absorbed into the modern universities. Generally, the award of first degrees across mainstream design dates back only three decades, the award of PhDs less than one decade. There is still a shortage of experienced supervisors and examiners who themselves hold the PhD and have deep knowledge of the process. A model specification defines clearly what is expected for the award of PhD in Art and Design.

This study is based on a research approach proposal aiming to reveal tacit knowledge that shapes architectural design processes through subjective accumulations and tools. With the premise that design embodies tacit and personal knowledge, it proposes an alternative way to decipher this subjective medium.

The proposed research approach, “(architectural) design research through reflection”, basically belongs to “research by design” method and narrowed in the focus of reflection. It enables to study how tacit knowledge functions within processes of architectural design without being its very subject. The proposal and the product of the approach, revealing diagram, are developed through the “architect's” tools and the involvement of the “researchers” in the process. It is also supported by a conceptual basis created from literature on reflection.

By means of the proposal, the reflective accumulation of the subjects, that is, the tacit knowledge, is investigated in relation to practice. The revealing diagram is presented as a tool through which relations can be interpreted within the framework of subjects. It is a tool by which the subjects, tools and processes of the architectural design product can be analysed.

The study contributes to architectural research by shifting the perspective on reflective knowledge that shapes design processes.

This paper aims to articulates how educators are ideal candidates to become “brand ambassadors”, triggering dormant qualities to influence behavioral change. The study aims at advocating a call for environmental futures by mobilizing pedagogues for changemaking. The research purpose was to deduce insights of real-life experiences when dealing with social influencers.

A design research approach was adopted. A sample of educators and students representing two universities of applied sciences was selected for qualitative. An experimental participatory experience was facilitated and observed.

This paper provides empirical insights. Design research findings include a persona profile, and an experimental prototype, designed to activate findings for real world impact. The outcome is for impact in the real world.

The research was conducted locally at a Dutch university of applied sciences, on behalf of a Norwegian commissioner. Therefore, cultural contextual conditions were factored.

An applicable advice is sketched, tested and shared with non governmental organization’s, institutions or stakeholders who aspire to mobilize and activate educators, turning them into ambassadors for their cause.

This paper aims at contributing and taking a position within the current tensions in academia and in the educational sector, in the light of the2012 San Francisco Declaration of Research Assessment declaration and of the urgency of enabling educators to partake to climate change activism.

Besides the engaged topic, this paper is uniquely based on a highly experiential, design thinking approach, which was co-created and facilitated in an experimental setting.

A substantial amount of research argues that built environmental interventions can improve the outcomes of patients and other users of healthcare facilities, supporting the concept of evidence-based design (EBD). However, the sources of such evidence and its flow into healthcare design are less well understood. This paper aims to provide insights to both the sources and flow of EBD used in three healthcare projects, to reveal practicalities of use and the relationships between them in practice.

Three healthcare case study projects provided empirical data on the design of a number of different elements. Inductive thematic analysis was used to identify the source and flow of evidence used in this design, which was subsequently quantised to reveal the dominant patterns therein.

Healthcare design teams use evidence from various sources, the knowledge and experience of the members of the design team being the most common due to both ease of access and thus flow. Practice-based research and peer-reviewed published research flow both directly and indirectly into the design process, whilst collaborations with researchers and research institutions nurture the credibility of the latter.

The findings can be used to enhance activities that aim to design, conduct and disseminate future EBD research to improve their flow to healthcare designers.

This research contributes to understandings of EBD by exploring the flow of research from various sources in conflation and within real-life environments.

The purpose of this research paper is to present a pragmatic and systematic approach to conduct and document Design Science Research (DSR) activities with Focus Groups (FGs), exploring its continuous usage and providing traceability between problem, requirements, solutions and artefacts.

The approach is to conduct the research and produce the meta-model for DSR with FG, a DSR approach was adopted using a conceptual model for Action Design Research already available. The artefact is the result from a specific literature review to define requirements, a careful design and a refinement stage where it was widely used and tested in real IS implementation projects.

Rigorous and committed stakeholder engagement is a critical success factor in complex projects. The main outcome of this research is a specific meta-model for DSR with FG that delivers new insights and practical guidelines for academics and professionals conducting and documenting real-world research and development initiatives deep-rooted in stakeholders' participation.

The meta-model has been endorsed as a practical and useful artefact by the stakeholders participating in the IS projects where it was adopted. However, to fully demonstrate its capabilities and to become more robust, the model has to be further used and tested in other application situations and environments.

The usage of FGs in DSR has already been proposed as an effective way, either to study artefacts, to propose improvements in its design or to acknowledge the utility of those artefacts in field use. The paper provides a sound contribution to this line of research by presenting a meta-model that integrates process and data, as well as a set of practical templates and forms that may be used by researchers and practitioners to conduct their projects.

There is an urgent need in terms of changing world conditions to move beyond the dualist paradigm that has traditionally informed design research, education and practice. Rather than attempt to reduce uncertainty, novelty and complexity as is the conventional approach, an argument is presented in this article that seeks to exploit these qualities through a reconceptualisation of design in creative as well as systematic, rigorous and ethical terms. Arts‐based research, which ‘brings together the systematic and rigorous qualities of inquiry with the creative and imaginative qualities of the arts’, is presented as being central to this reconceptualisation. This is exemplified in the application of art‐informed inquiry in a research unit for graduating tertiary‐level interior design students. The application is described in this article and is shown to rely substantially on the image and its capacity to open up and reveal new possibilities and meaning.

The authors reflect on the academic bachelor and master programs of architecture. From the perspective of higher education policy in Flanders, Belgium, they examine the intrinsic challenges of the academic educational setting, and the way architectural education can fit in and benefit from it, without losing its specific design oriented qualities. Therefore, they unravel the process of architectural design research, as a discipline-authentic way of knowledge production, leading to the identification of a number of implicit features of an academic architectural learning environment. The disquisition is based on educational arguments pointed out by literature and theory. Furthermore, the authors analyze whether this learning environment can comply with general standards of external quality assurance and accreditation systems. Doing so, they reveal the Achilles’ heel of architectural education: the incompatibility of the design jury with formalized assessment frameworks. Finally, the authors conclude with an advocacy for academic freedom. To assure the quality of academic architectural programs, it is necessary that universities maintain a critical attitude towards standardized policy frameworks.

This paper aims to present an integrative review of the research studies on nursing unit layouts.

Studies selected for review were published between 1956 and 2014. For the purpose of this review, a framework for integrative review was developed using research orientations. The three primary dimensions – technical, psychological and social – of the designed environment and various combinations of these dimensions were used to define the research orientations of these studies.

Of all the publications reviewed for the paper, 21 presented technical orientations, 16 psychological orientations, 3 social orientations, 20 psychotechnical orientations, 10 sociotechnical orientations, 2 psychosocial orientations and 13 presented psychosociotechnical orientations. With only a few exceptions, several issues related to nursing unit layouts were investigated no more than one time in any one category of research orientations. Several other seemingly important issues including patient and family behavior and perception, health outcomes and social and psychosocial factors in relation to unit layouts have not been studied adequately.

Future studies on nursing unit layouts will need to focus on patient and family behavior and perception, health outcomes and social and psychosocial factors in different units. They will also need to focus on developing theories concerning the effects of layouts on the technical, psychological and social dimensions of nursing units.

Despite a long history of research on nursing unit layouts, an integrative review of these studies is still missing in the literature. This review fills in the gap using a novel framework for integrative review developed based on research orientations.