Just as an example, I can mention the opposing approaches of two presenters’ use of historical data. I was panel member for both presentations: Pablo Gamboa’s research centres around the typological classification of campuses in South America and Milijana Niković’s research uses films as an investigative/speculative instrument to inquire the disruptions in the history of Belgrade’s urbanscape. Although, at first glance one seems to be rooted in typology and the other in media studies, both negated historiography as an active knowledge formation in their research. Both researchers, focusing on the instrumentality of their medium of research (campuses/typology and film/montage), use history (or historical material) as a database rather than a knowledge domain. This leads to the oversight of the significance of the epistemic dimension of research in general. Therefore, I have been contemplating on the nature of design-driven research in terms of the definitions of “design” and “design objectives” in conjunction with the underlying research agendas: how (much) does the design driven aspects of the research contribute to the meta-frame of the research?
