Introduction to research

This course offers students an introduction to research through a corporeal and perceptive approach to territories, leading to a plastic approach as well as theoretical work. This elective also aims to introduce students to the aesthetic, cultural and political issues surrounding the relationship between art, media and territory.

– Continuous assessment and research report

– Courses, methodological workshops
– Research file on a practised territory

Scenography is considered an art of place, in that its vocation is to shape the performance space for a given work. Scenography thus regulates the spectator’s relationship with the work in a certain symbolic context. Today, scenographers are called upon in fields other than theater, such as museums, exhibitions, fashion shows, gardens, architecture and public spaces. Scenography is a tool, in its ability to give form and, above all, space to the imaginary… not through a given and definitively fixed location, but through the shifts that the representation makes from a real location to an imaginary one, and from the imaginary location to the real one.

Logbook, reports and analyses
Defining the subject of the dissertation

Lessons and applications in memory workshops

The aim is to give students the methodological principles they need to reflect on a project and express it in a problematized way in a film thesis.

continuous monitoring

The sessions will follow on from and complement the Art, Cinema, Architecture Seminar.
This option is open only to students pursuing a film thesis in the same seminar.

The aim of this course is to provide students with the methodological skills needed to write the various stages of the dissertation (S7, S8, S9).

A number of intermediary exercises make up the whole of the pre-dissertation: initial intentions; definition of key words; an annotated bibliography; several reading sheets; definition of your problem and hypothesis; description of your field; presentation of your working method; timetable.

Preparatory work for the dissertation is combined with the corresponding seminar. In this context, students are invited to develop an original and personal research approach, leading to the construction of a problematic and hypotheses, to the analysis of a field, supported by the constitution of a corpus of references on already constituted knowledge (theoretical and methodological works) and from survey data, observations, archives… 

Active participation in workshop work, personal dossier analyzing articles, drafting common bibliographies of references.

The main aim of this course is to prepare students for writing their Master’s thesis. It can also serve as a foundation for students wishing to embark on a research course in semester 9.

The aim of this optional course is to enable students to acquire the skills required for high-quality research work: mastery of concepts, choice and argumentative corpus, selected references, constructed bibliography, precise writing. In addition, attention will be paid to modes and tools of investigation specific to the field of space and design practices.

Participation in courses and completion of work assignments; Written and oral presentation of a summary of work carried out in connection with the development of a dissertation topic.
The elements gathered for this dossier will be used directly for the dissertation to be developed over the three semesters of S7, S8 and S9.

Two hours per week, divided between lectures and tutorials.
Students will practice a number of skills directly related to the production of their dissertation: bibliographical research in a variety of databases; analysis of a text, an image, a place, a project and a film sequence; in situ writing work; oral presentation of a work of their choice.

A reference bibliography will be provided during the course of the year.

Accompanying the seminar, this optional course provides students with the tools and methods they need to engage in research that is demanding in form and precise in writing. Based on a partnership with the GERPHAU laboratory, it offers a more in-depth philosophical examination of the concepts covered in the seminar, to give the themes their power of meaning, to function through questioning, and to question horizons. In particular, the notion of the operative concept will be called into question to analyze the ways in which the architecture-city-philosophy relationship is articulated. The aim is to problematize an architectural issue and make a philosophical concept operative (design by research/research by design).

At the end of the semester, 50% continuous assessment (course participation), and 50% assessment of research progress (by two readers).

Personal commitment and regular attendance are required, along with regular dissemination of the work and an oral presentation of progress
Reference work (the reading activity) is an important part of research work. It will be approached by placing the proposed sources in a disciplinary and historical perspective (map of identifiable knowledge on a given question).

The bibliography will be built up within the optional course, according to the specificities of the themes, and will be capitalized on in a common database for use in the seminars (S7, S8 and S9).

This training in research through research is a twofold process:
-Collective, building analytical and critical thinking on international human spatial productions and their long-term mutations.
-Individual, in the patient, cumulative workshop of producing the Master’s thesis, based on the reasoned construction of a specific subject and problematic, a referenced corpus, and a posture specific to each student.

– Reading cards.
– Defining a research theme.
– Creation of a study corpus.
– Develop a critical, well-argued problem.

French-language lectures on topics developed by students.
Languages accepted (individual corrections): Spanish, English, Portuguese, Italian, Vietnamese.
Assignments:
– Lecture and reading notes as identification and construction of a research object and a personal problematic.
– A thematic dossier and the preparation of a specific corpus for the development of an original research project.

First approach to scientific research, its methods and tools, through the field of architectural and urban ambiences: the aim is to distinguish the different types of scientific research (fundamental/applied) and their differences from development activities; to understand the foundations of the experimental method, its strengths and limitations, and finally to be able to orientate oneself in the products of research (reports, monographs, communications…).

Critical analysis and presentation of a scientific article (in connection with the research work for the dissertation)
Construction of an annotated bibliography (in connection with the dissertation topic)

Reading notes and lectures, annotated bibliography + continuous assessment (= attendance)

The aim of this course is to introduce students in the ‘Criticism and Histories of Architecture’ seminar to the tools of research. The knowledge imparted responds to a common rule: how best to construct and treat a subject. How do you draw up a bibliography and a critical apparatus in order to take ownership of a subject and define the state of the question? How to collect useful documentation? Where to look? How to select? What are the advantages and pitfalls of Internet research? Finally, what role should interpretation play in the various ways of making sources speak – including ‘images’ – which are so many ‘traces’ serving as the basis for building a corpus?

Attendance compulsory. Continuous assessment exercises as the course progresses.

Various exercises throughout the course.

The aim is to learn about the different types of research possible in the field of architecture, as well as their methods and techniques.
This course is an ideal opportunity to explore these methods and techniques.

Assessment of knowledge will be based on the pre-dissertation submitted to the seminar, which must demonstrate the contribution of this teaching.

Sessions will take the form of lectures that will be tested in the work required in seminars.
The work required is directly linked to the preparation of the dissertation, and more specifically the pre-dissertation.

This course offers a theoretical and methodological introduction to architectural research, its approaches, methods and tools. The aim is to equip students to define a research topic and develop it further during S8 and S9 to produce a Master’s thesis.

In addition to attendance and participation in the course, each student must produce three reading sheets (one book and two scientific articles), and propose a cross-reading between them.

Production of three reading sheets and a state-of-the-art report.

ARBORIO Anne-Marie, FOURNIER Pierre. L’observation directe. Paris, Armand Colin, 2015 (5th edition).
BEAUD Stéphane, WEBER Florence. Guide de l’enquête de terrain, Paris, La Découvert, 1998.
BECKER Howard. How to write Social Science. Beginning and ending your article, thesis or book. Paris, Economica, 2004.
DE SINGLY François. L’enquête et ses méthodes : le questionnaire. Paris, Armand Colin, 2005 (2nd edition).
GAUTHIER Benoit (ed.). Recherche sociale de la problématique à la collecte de données. Québec, Presse de l’Université du Québec, 2009 (5th edition).
GROSJEAN Michèle, THIBAUD Jean-Paul (dir.). L’espace urbain en méthodes. Marseille, Editions Parenthèses, 2001.
KAUFMANN Jean-Claude. L’entretien compréhensif. Paris: Nathan, 1996.
PASSERON Jean-Claude. “L’espace mental de l’enquête (I). The transformation of information about the world in the social sciences”. Enquête. Archives de la revue Enquête, 1995, no. 1 (October): 13-42. https://doi.org/10.4000/enquete.259.
PERETZ Henri. Methods in sociology: observation. Paris, La Découverte, 2004.
PINSON Daniel, “L’habitat, relevé et révélé par le dessin: observer l’espace construit et son appropriation”. Espaces et sociétés. L’observation et ses angles, 2016, 1 (164-165): 40-67. https://doi.org/10.3917/esp.164.0049.

The aim of this course is to introduce students to the canonical methods of intellectual and scientific work, and to the practicalities of knowledge production, as they prepare their dissertations for the ‘History and practices of transformations in the built environment’ seminar.
This “introduction” to research has several components: an epistemological component (the methods of scientific research, the criteria of validity and scientificity of a research project); a practical component (the work and daily life of a researcher); an institutional component (making students aware of how the architectural and urban research community is structured in France and abroad).