As ‘design research’ has become increasingly ubiquitous within the contemporary

academy its meaning has become increasingly diffused. It could be that like ‘design’

itself, the term has as many different definitions as there are practices that align

themselves with it. Nevertheless, one adherent strain emerged in a newly public

manner in the mid-1990s as a ‘new’ paradigm for architectural education and prac-

tice aligned to then emerging digital design processes, a Deleuze-derived new

materialism, as well as Post-Fordist paradigms of a global information economy and

production. Since then, such design research has become synonymous with inno-

vations linked to complex geometry, parametric design and material

experimentation. To the extent that my education, teaching and research has

participated and sought to develop such practices, this chapter is a reflection on a

shared project that has developed over almost two decades and which has reached

a maturity that suggests it is time for both an assessment and transformation.