Constructive Design Research

During the course Constructive Design Research, my team and I got the assignment to do research into the topic “the lost physicality in distributed collaborative co-exploration”, through a showroom approach. 

Throughout the course different Design Research methods were explored and explained, which broadened my view on what Design Research was and could be. Specifically the three lines of doing research – Lab, Field and Showroom – were enlightening, and have helped me analyse other types of research during my master, where I could better look for what was useful or relevant to my topics.

During the course I did a small showroom research project with a team. This  taught me much about doing design research, as I got to practice it more seriously than in the bachelor, and mostly about the showroom approach. I learned that explorative reseach works best with showroom and how to apply showroom properly to get the type of results I want. I also learned showroom is the best approach for what I find interesting research, as it explored themes on the edge of society. These are more often related to imagining a new society, or using design as a transformative practice, which are the design fields I include in my vision and practice.