The Research-Design Interaction: Lessons Learned from an Evidence-Based Design Studio

As evidence-based design (EBD) emerged as a model of design practice, considerable attention has been given to its research component. That, however, overshadows another essential component – the change agent, or the designer. To the practitioner EBD introduced a new skill set, the ability to interact with scientific evidence. Industry sources suggest adoption of the EBD approach across large number of design firms. How comfortable are these designers in integrating research with design decision-making? Optimizing the interaction between the primary change agent (the designer) and the evidence is crucial to producing the desired outcomes. As a preliminary step to examine the question, an architectural design studio was used as a surrogate environment to examine how designers interact with evidence. Twelve students enrolled in a healthcare EBD studio during spring 2009, where a 3-phase didactic structure was adopted: knowing a hospital, knowing the evidence, and designing with knowledg