RESEARCH  .  EVALUATE  .  DESIGN

Designing a building is a form of research in its own right. Architectural knowledge ultimately resides in the built object which is by definition and thus original.
The building as a building reduces architecture to mute objects. Architectural knowledge may lie to some extent in the building, but it also lies elsewhere: in the processes that lead to the building, in the representation of the building, in its use, in the theories beyond the building, in the multiple interpretations of the building and so on. Architecture exceeds the building as object, just as art exceeds the painting as object.
A ‘good’ building is necessarily good research. Architecture is often described as ‘good’ because it fits into known and tested canons of taste, type or tectonics. A ‘good’ building, far from pushing towards new forms of knowledge, merely establishes or incrementally shifts the status quo. The various architectural award systems consolidate and perpetuate such attitudes which leads towards a detailed evaluation thus resulting into a creative spaces which are practical and livable.