The Architectural Laboratory: Performing Design Research

Over the past thirty years, the number of architectural laboratories has surged from a handful to hundreds across the globe. Yet the term remains elusive: What defines an architectural lab? And why has it become so compelling to architects today? The Architectural Laboratory is the first volume to critically address these questions, assembling a series of essays that examine some of the most remarkable architectural labs of the twentieth century. While scientific laboratories have long been the subject of scholarly inquiry, architecture labs remain underexplored. This book situates them within their specific architectural-historical contexts, revealing how they have operated both metaphorically and materially. On the one hand, architectural laboratories have functioned as amulets – protective spaces that shield practitioners from conventional expectations while fostering creativity through their unique material environments. On the other, they served as shibboleths – symbolic alignments with scientific traditions that lend credibility and facilitate interdisciplinary exchange. Within this dual framework, the volume identifies three key modalities of laboratory performance: simulation, personification, and technological visualization. Essential reading for architectural historians, theorists, practitioners, educators, students, critics, and curators, The Architectural Laboratory offers a compelling lens through which to understand the evolving role of experimentation in architectural practice.