The Design Thesis in Architecture

Ganapathy Mahalingam, Ph.D., Professor of Architecture

The Design Thesis in Architecture embodies a distinctive form of inquiry. It is different from an academic thesis in traditional disciplines in the hard, applied and social sciences. In a Design Thesis, design artifacts such as visual images, technical drawings such as plans, elevations and sections, digital models and simulations, and renderings of built environments, are used as research instruments.

In Professor Mahalingam’s studio section, the students begin by identifying an underlying premise for their thesis, pose a research question that they expect to answer, or state a design proposition that they hope show as true, false, or not resolvable. The journey of the inquiry is expected to resolve these, as the American philosopher John Dewey put it, into a "warranted assertability.”

The fall semester is spent using numerous research methods, both quantitative and qualitative, drawn from traditional protocols, that drive their inquiry, and help them realize an architectural design solution that supports the claims in their thesis. The entire inquiry completed in the fall semester, is documented as a research report with findings that will be applied in the design solution developed in the spring semester that follows. A compilation of these research reports over more than a decade is available in the Institutional Repository of the NDSU Libraries.

Students use surveys, interviews, case studies, empirical data, computer simulations, statistical analysis and visual analysis as some of the research methods that drive their inquiry. The design solution based on the research attempts to resolve the underlying premise, thesis question, or thesis proposition in architectural terms. Architectural representations become the research instruments that establish the thesis. The architectural design validates the research.

Graduate students, who work on the Design Thesis in Architecture come from very diverse backgrounds. They are prepared differently in terms of their cultural, educational, social and family experiences. They also aspire to do different things in life, which are reflected in the goals of their thesis projects. In order to accommodate this diversity, Professor Mahalingam uses ‘realms of agreement” as the common ground for the development of the inquiry. Science, Mathematics, Computation and Logical Reasoning, are these “realms of agreement.” They do not claim “ realms of Absolute Truth” but provide “realms of agreement” for diverse minds. This approach is firmly grounded in the Pragmatist school of American philosophers, Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. Maxims such as, truth is the end point of indefinite scientific inquiry (Peirce), truth is what works in lived experience (James), and truth is based on “warranted assertability” (Dewey), often drive their inquiry.

Students in the studio sacrifice an exotic imagination, not because they are incapable of it, but because they want to ground their imagination in the cultural realm they know, in communities and people they identify with, and truths that are close to their upbringing and education.

Refer to the textbook authored by Professor Mahalingam for a detailed account of the pedgogical philosophy. 

A Guide to the Design Thesis in Architecture