Design as Laboratory: Building value through design-directed research

Abstract

Within university-contexts, design is increasingly being framed as experimental. There is a shift from the exemplary to the investigative, and from the singular outcome to a suite of scenarios. It is within this changing constitution of design research that Lincoln University’s Landscope DesignLab operates. Design as Laboratory presents a challenge for those who continue to see design as merely in the service of ‘solving a problem,’ rather than recognising its value as a vehicle for exploring new terrain.

Landscope DesignLab seeks to examine, and in the process consider the capacity of design-directed research to generate options, opportunities and value other those being identified elsewhere. In this paper we discuss projects undertaken with the DesignLab, including Ararira/Yarrs, Eden New Zealand, and Punakaiki. We offer five strategies that are core to research within a design laboratory: questioning, collaborating, designing, grounding and communicating.