[I-5] Using Qualitative Methodology in Architectural Research?

My previous experiences have left me with the assumption that qualitative methods are suspect in the assessment of the effectiveness of designed spaces. Indeed, I believe that individual perception of the built environment is highly subjective and can be valid for each person, but design, by its very nature is ordered in an intentional way. Thus, while I believe that architecture as an art form always expresses something – the newly-built always comments on the existing environment in terms of what indigenous elements it chooses or refuses to integrate, how important it perceives itself to be, how much it chooses to aid the patron through its structure and the hierarchy it gives to particular spaces, how responsive it chooses to be to cultural concerns, and in many others ways (and considering how easy it is to obscure, in these anthropomorphic terms, the direct intention of the school board, principal or regent),the pressure and breadth of these influences are largely in the mind of the beholder.

Therefore, in analyzing my thoughts about what it means to use qualitative methods, I find that I have approached articles with a general skepticism of validity when they (and this is so typical in architectural journals) cite anecdotal support for particular design elements employed in a prototypical school, loosely based on a construct of a Model. Or, in regard to qualitative research methodologies, I cringe when I read that specific educational facilities are evaluated to parse out just what are the influences at work in synthesizing an innovative pedagogical and organizational school design into a building concept and find that they used only open ended surveys, participant observation and relative research review to support their findings. These often conclude with an attempt to apply it to general situations. And case studies abound! One can find studies that certain colors enhance learning, spatial geometry is directly causal in scholastic proficiency and one designer remarked that the theory of Constructivism is evidenced in his facility in that the building “provides a forum for architecture itself to become a teacher for students, as students interact... with the physical spaces we call schools”.

It is far more comfortable for me to lean toward “findings based on ‘reliable’ variables”, as David Silverman puts it, especially in the face of a facility that will cost several million dollars to construct and furnish and take many months to build.
Our readings do enlighten my initial conjecture, however. The author’s discussion of using qualitative data as a pre-test certainly seems apropos. His declaration that “Whatever we observe is impregnated by assumptions” and the validity of a functioning hypothesis was insightful to me. Furthermore, the concern to integrate learning and environment is so complex that more than one method may be required and quantitative methods alone may not provide meaningful answers to the design and assessment of learning environment in an experiential way. So now, I am less apt to think that one is ‘good’ and one is ‘bad’.

Perhaps when all is considered, credibility, validity and other challenges in addressing whether to use qualitative methods, quantitative methods or a combination, seem daunting, because they are, and such a journey for me is best undertaken open and with prior assumptions questioned.