Research methods are a developing area of interest in the built environment and OPEN to discussion. Methods are part of our intellectual, social and institutional contexts. Methodological choice often relates to the philosophical position of the researcher and the phenomenon under analysis. This is to say, closer consideration tells us that methods can be distinct from the aims and products of the research, such as prediction and knowledge. Methods are also different from the epistemic communities that inform the values and justifications of the research aims, such as reproducibility or objectivity and the use of a specific method or its evaluation. Methods cannot wholly be derived from the places, problems, phenomena, disciplines, technologies or conventions and professional habits associated with research; there is a specific, rather than general integrity of methods based on the practices of the researcher, the place, and the type of research being done. 

The practices associated with the development of built environments do not historically demand methodological consideration, for example: applied design as an investigation is open-ended with few strategies for how to do systematically structured research before, during, or after completion of a built project. Evidence-based design borrows methods from the social sciences, historical research from the humanities, and correlational research from engineering. In order to test current methods and develop new methodological approaches from within architecture, we point to distinctions between protocols, processes, practices, and contexts to clarify the differences between various methods in architecture research. The challenge is to determine what methodological approaches to research inform the processes undertaken by researchers in a wide variety of applications to the built environment.

We are interested in methodological approaches, outcomes, challenges, theories and limitations in fields focused on the built environment. What are the methods best used in your research of the built environment, and why? What research methods or strategies are you using to implement practices over time? What are the meta-methodologies informing your research? What do you see as the most effective methods for specific types of research in the built environment? This OPEN issue asks researchers across architecture and related subfields to share their methods through original research including qualitative, quantitative, mixed, design studies, historical, correlational, causal-comparative, and experimental. This issue, like TAD itself, is OPEN to your creativity and your discoveries.