ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the three themes of research activity presented in this book – seeing space, doing space and making space. The first, ‘seeing’ theme, encompasses research which builds rich understandings of urban places as they are lived, where developing empathy for the context and topic is as important as gathering concrete data. Around the second, ‘doing’, theme research focuses on exploring opportunities and making propositions: it is generative. Researches working close to the third theme, ‘making’, form, test and refine spatial and relational settings. This structure, drawn from design thinking approaches, may offer researchers an opportunity to think through their own practices, perhaps particularly when collaborating in multi-disciplinary teams. More and more, researchers and practitioners are looking and working across disciplines to find ways of thinking spatially and to engage not only with a discipline-honed senses of the world, but also with those of colleagues from other fields. This discussion does not seek to erase or negate the sophistication and complexities of discipline-specific conversations about specific methodologies and methods. Rather it offers to act as a bridge, an avenue for border crossings, through which researchers and research teams might discuss intersections and productive tensions.
