The Practice of Practice 2: research in the medium of design

RESEARCH BACKGROUND The Practice of Practice 2 continues the series of publications documenting the design research practice of the invitational research program in the School of Architecture + Design at RMIT University. This publication includes excerpts from the work of eighteen architects: Scott Balmforth, Gerard Reinmuth, Sara Cole, Riet Eeckhout, Ephraim Joris, Brian Donovan, Timothy Hill, Nikki Kalms, Michael Patroni, M3Architecture, Robert Simeoni, Leign Woolly, Adrian Iredale, Finn Pedersen, Robert Morris Nunn, Dale Jones-Evans, Roger Wood and Randal Marsh. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION This publication advances and presents further evidence about the design practices of architects and practitioner academics. It considers the wealth of knowledge production inherent in other modes thinking and doing that comes to encapsulate what it is that architecture may offer by way of its own practices. Central to this has been the reflections, through the invitational stream, of individual practitioners both locally and globally. RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE The value of the project is distinguished by the continual examination of practice models, evidenced by all five publications that compose the invitational stream thus far. This series includes Fin de Siecle? (1993), Transfiguring the Ordinary (1995), Interstitial Modernism (2000), and the Practice of Practice (2003). The fifth publication, The Practice of Practice 2, distinguishes itself by increasing the awareness of the role of the discipline of architecture in the production of new knowledge, and more specifically identifying the scope by which research via the medium of design may open itself to ongoing reflection and examination.