ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that field of research should be understood as ‘Raumgeschehen’ – a complex, non-hierarchical, performative field of spatial interactions. Fostering a sense of ‘being alive’ and ‘understanding as creativity’ for researching this Raumgeschehen, it is essential to work with design formats such as drawing, experiments, inventive inventories, activating interventions and intuitive explorations. That the theoretical foundations are clear and the advantages have become evident, assume that a potential PhD candidate might have two questions facing the task ahead: one relates to the possible formats of design work, the other point concerns when to integrate design work into the PhD or research process. The PhD candidates can increase the number of design explorations they have been involved in to explore a diversity of questions and ideas and gain teaching experience, while the students become involved in innovative topics and approaches or benefit from a teacher who is at the forefront of knowledge production in their particular field.
