Design your methodology
Eight links join a problem to an evaluation. If one link is weak, the report is weak, however good the maps.
This page shows you how to design your research and your design together for the regional planning and design studio. It follows the Guide to Effective Report Writing in Urbanism by Roberto Rocco and Juliana Gonçalves. The heart of the page is the core: how to write your main research question, split it into sub-questions, and give every sub-question a method. Finish with a one-page methodology canvas.
Go to the core ↓Walk the chain ↓Ready-made chains ↓The canvas ↓A methodology is a chain
A report convinces when every link holds the next one. The problem you pose decides which questions are worth asking. The questions decide what counts as an answer. That decides your methods and your evidence. In a planning and design studio, design is part of the chain as a way of finding things out, and the evaluation sends you back to the problem you started with.
Figure 1. The alignment chain. The links follow the order in which your report argues. In practice you will go round more than once: the dashed arrow is the loop that evaluation closes. Every box is a link to its station.
Three tests tell you whether the chain holds. Run them on your own draft at each station, and again before you hand in.
Station 1 draws on the conceptual framework and spatial justice pages. The core and stations 4 to 6 give the reasons behind the Methods and Ethics pages. Station 7 sits beside Regional planning and design. Station 8 uses the Evaluation guide. The Pathways page tells you which theories to carry through the chain, and the Report page shows where each station lands in your document. The writing advice comes from the course guide.
From one question to a method for each answer
Your methodology rests on two sentences: the question the whole study answers, and the questions that break it into answerable parts. Get these right and the other links fall into place. Get them wrong and no method will rescue the report. This section is the heart of the page. Return to it every week, and fill in the table at the end.
One question for the whole study
The MRQ is the single sentence your whole report answers. We use one worked example throughout this section: a question about South Holland’s energy landscape. Read it in pieces first.
The example comes from Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025. The colour split and the labels are our reading of how the question is built.
How can [place]’s [what you study] be [verb: planned, designed, governed, re-designed] to [outcome] while [condition]?
1 · Open with How, To what extent or In what ways+
Write the question at a conceptual level, opening with “How can…?”, “To what extent…?” or “In what ways…?” (Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025).
These openers ask for an explanation or a proposal. “Is…?” and “Does…?” invite a yes or a no, and a yes or a no ends the inquiry.
2 · Say where+
Name the place. In our worked example it is South Holland, a whole province. A question that could be asked anywhere will be answered with generalities.
Name the scale at which you will work, because it decides which data and which actors you meet.
3 · Say what+
Name the thing you study and the thing you may change. In the example: the urban energy landscape, re-designed.
Use the key concept from your conceptual framework here. If you cannot, the framework is not ready.
4 · Say what outcome you care about+
Say who, where and what outcome you care about (Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025). Here the outcome is socio-spatial justice, together with a carbon target.
This is where your objectives (station 2) enter the question. Design is a means to that outcome and not the end.
5 · Make it the next sentence of your problem statement+
The MRQ should read like the inevitable next sentence after your problem statement (Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025). Read your problem statement and your MRQ together. If the MRQ could follow any other problem, one of them needs work.
6 · Keep methods out of it+
The MRQ does not need to link to one specific method. It is answered by the whole journey: all your sub-questions, research and design together.
If your MRQ names a method, you have written a task, and probably a sub-question.
Each question below is the example MRQ, weakened on purpose in one way. Find the fault, then open.
“How can the urban energy landscape be re-designed to advance socio-spatial justice while meeting the 2030 decarbonisation targets?”Think first, then open +
The example MRQ with South Holland removed. Which landscape? Whose targets? Without a place the question cannot say which data, which actors or which scale to use.
“Is South Holland’s urban energy landscape just?”Think first, then open +
One word answers it. Ask to what extent, for whom, and by which kind of justice, then ask how it could change.
“How can South Holland’s urban energy landscape be re-designed?”Think first, then open +
Re-designed for what? Without an outcome there is no way to judge a design, and the evaluation (station 8) has nothing to measure against.
“How can South Holland’s landscape be re-designed to advance justice, and which GIS indicators measure it best?”Think first, then open +
The second half is a sub-question about a method. Keep one question in the MRQ and move the indicators into an SRQ.
Unpack the main question into questions you can answer
The MRQ is too large to answer in one go, so you derive sub-questions from it. Each SRQ keeps the place and the subject of the MRQ and unpacks one other part of it. Together they must add up to the MRQ. Watch the example run: the main question splits into four, and each one picks up a method.
Figure 2. One MRQ unpacked into four SRQs, each with its method (after Table 1 in Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025).
Answered with: GIS equity mapping and household survey
Answered with: Process tracing and semi-structured interviews
Answered with: Critical discourse analysis
Answered with: Scenario workshops and co-design with communities or focus groups
| Part of the MRQ | SRQs it produces | What the SRQs do with it |
|---|---|---|
| South Holland’s urban energy landscape | All four | Repeated in every SRQ. This parallel wording is what ties each SRQ visibly to the MRQ. |
| socio-spatial justice | SRQ1, SRQ2, SRQ3 | Split into three dimensions of justice, one per SRQ: distribution, procedure, recognition. |
| be re-designed | SRQ4 | Turned into a question about the planning and design tools that could do the re-designing. |
| while meeting the 2030 decarbonisation targets | SRQ1 and SRQ4 | Carried by the renewable infrastructure in SRQ1 and by the low-carbon solutions in SRQ4. This last row is our reading. |
The question and the four SRQs come from Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025. The derivation shown here is our reading.
SRQ1 · Distributional justiceSpatial configuration · GIS equity mapping and household survey+
The question. To what extent does the current spatial configuration of renewable-energy infrastructure shape the distribution of environmental burdens and benefits across urban, peri-urban, and rural communities in South Holland?
Method. GIS equity mapping and household survey
What the pairing gives you. A map shows where solar parks, grid corridors and biomass plants sit and who lives near them. A survey tells you what households living there experience.
What you hold at the end. Maps of exposure; survey results by area.
Source: Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025, Table 1. The last two lines are our reading.
SRQ2 · Procedural justiceParticipation in landscape design · Process tracing and semi-structured interviews+
The question. In what ways do existing planning pathways enable or constrain marginalized neighbourhoods from influencing the evolving urban energy landscape?
Method. Process tracing and semi-structured interviews
What the pairing gives you. Process tracing follows a decision step by step through documents and records. Interviews tell you who could enter the process and who could not, and why.
What you hold at the end. A timeline of decision points; interview themes on access.
Source: Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025, Table 1. The last two lines are our reading.
SRQ3 · Recognition justiceNarratives of place · Critical discourse analysis+
The question. How are energy poverty, cultural identity, and heritage framed in policy documents and regional media narratives about South Holland’s energy landscape?
Method. Critical discourse analysis
What the pairing gives you. You read policy texts and media coverage closely for what they name, what they leave out, and whose voice they use.
What you hold at the end. Coded texts; a list of framings and silences.
Source: Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025, Table 1. The last two lines are our reading.
SRQ4 · Transformative design instrumentsDesign as a way to change · Scenario workshops and co-design with communities or focus groups+
The question. Which spatial-planning or design tools could reconfigure the urban energy landscape toward community-owned, low-carbon solutions?
Method. Scenario workshops and co-design with communities or focus groups
What the pairing gives you. You draw options, put them in front of the people affected, and record what they accept, change and reject.
What you hold at the end. Scenarios; workshop records; a log of feedback and changes.
Source: Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025, Table 1. The last two lines are our reading.
Each SRQ unpacks one dimension: spatial, technical, social, ecological or institutional. Use this when your MRQ is about a system with several parts.
The South Holland example: distribution, procedure, recognition, plus a design question. Use this when your conceptual framework is built on a theory with named parts.
Our suggestion: describe first, then explain or understand, then propose. Use this when the MRQ asks for a design and you need to earn it with evidence first.
- Few, feasible, tied to methods. Keep the SRQs few, feasible within your available time, and explicitly tied to the methods you will employ. In the example there are four, which suits a graduate timeline.
- One thing each. One SRQ, one dimension. If you write “and” inside an SRQ, split it.
- Parallel wording. Use parallel structure and clear keywords, so a reader sees how each SRQ feeds the whole.
- A reason to exist. If an SRQ does not clearly advance the MRQ, revise it or drop it.
- A method you can name. If you cannot say how you would answer it, it is still only a topic.
These rules follow Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025, problem statement section.
Each SRQ below is one of the example SRQs, weakened on purpose. Say what is wrong, then open.
“Is participation good in South Holland?”Think first, then open +
A weakened version of SRQ2. Ask in what ways existing planning pathways enable or constrain marginalised neighbourhoods, and name them.
“To what extent does the spatial configuration of renewable infrastructure distribute burdens and benefits, and why did the province choose solar parks?”Think first, then open +
A weakened version of SRQ1. The second half is a different question with a different method. Split it, or drop it if it does not feed the MRQ.
“Interview twenty residents about the energy landscape.”Think first, then open +
A weakened version of SRQ2. This is a method with no question. Ask what you want to learn and then say how interviews help.
“Who has power over the energy landscape?”Think first, then open +
A weakened version of SRQ2 that would repeat a stakeholder analysis already inside it. Two SRQs that need the same method and give the same answer should be merged.
No question without a method, no method without a question
The MRQ is answered by the whole journey. The SRQs are the operational questions, and each links to particular methods. Make the links explicit in a table that maps each SRQ to its methods, the reason for the choice and the insight you expect (Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025). Here are two worked examples.
| Lens | SRQ phrasing | Method (Table 1) |
|---|---|---|
| Distributional justice | To what extent does the current spatial configuration of renewable-energy infrastructure shape the distribution of environmental burdens and benefits across urban, peri-urban, and rural communities in South Holland? | GIS equity mapping and household survey |
| Procedural justice | In what ways do existing planning pathways enable or constrain marginalized neighbourhoods from influencing the evolving urban energy landscape? | Process tracing and semi-structured interviews |
| Recognition justice | How are energy poverty, cultural identity, and heritage framed in policy documents and regional media narratives about South Holland’s energy landscape? | Critical discourse analysis |
| Transformative design instruments | Which spatial-planning or design tools could reconfigure the urban energy landscape toward community-owned, low-carbon solutions? | Scenario workshops and co-design with communities or focus groups |
| SRQ | Methods | Rationale | Expected insight |
|---|---|---|---|
| What informal uses of public space can be identified in the neighbourhood? | Exploratory observations, field notes, photographs | To capture everyday, unplanned and temporary uses of space in situ | A typology of informal spatial practices and their locations |
| How do residents perceive safety in the neighbourhood’s public spaces? | Short street interviews, in-depth interviews | To gather first-hand experiences and perceptions of local users | Common concerns, perceived safe and unsafe zones, and explanatory narratives |
| Which spatial factors contribute to the urban heat island effect in the case area? | Literature review, GIS mapping, thermal imaging | To identify indicators from existing research and map how they show up locally | Spatial correlation between heat retention and urban form |
| How can design strategies mitigate heat stress in vulnerable areas? | Design prototyping, scenario development, feedback sessions | To test spatial interventions and assess their feasibility and acceptance | Iterative design strategies tailored to local environmental and social conditions |
Tables 1 and 3 from Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025. Wording lightly shortened in Table 3.
Four SRQs from the second worked example, on neighbourhood safety and heat. Decide on methods, then open to compare.
Which method?
What informal uses of public space can be identified in the neighbourhood?Think first, then open +
What informal uses of public space can be identified in the neighbourhood?
Exploratory observations, field notes, photographs.
Why: To capture everyday, unplanned and temporary uses of space in situ.
You learn: A typology of informal spatial practices and their locations.
Source: Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025, Table 3.
Which method?
How do residents perceive safety in the neighbourhood’s public spaces?Think first, then open +
How do residents perceive safety in the neighbourhood’s public spaces?
Short street interviews, in-depth interviews.
Why: To gather first-hand experiences and perceptions of local users.
You learn: Common concerns, perceived safe and unsafe zones, and explanatory narratives.
Source: Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025, Table 3.
Which method?
Which spatial factors contribute to the urban heat island effect in the case area?Think first, then open +
Which spatial factors contribute to the urban heat island effect in the case area?
Literature review, GIS mapping, thermal imaging.
Why: To identify indicators from existing research and map how they show up locally.
You learn: Spatial correlation between heat retention and urban form.
Source: Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025, Table 3.
Which method?
How can design strategies mitigate heat stress in vulnerable areas?Think first, then open +
How can design strategies mitigate heat stress in vulnerable areas?
Design prototyping, scenario development, feedback sessions.
Why: To test spatial interventions and assess their feasibility and acceptance.
You learn: Iterative design strategies tailored to local environmental and social conditions.
Source: Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025, Table 3.
Open the type of your SRQ. One panel opens at a time. This navigator is our synthesis of the Methods sheets and of Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025, so check it against both.
DESCRIBEwhat, where, how much+
Position: positivist or realist.
Methods: GIS mapping, secondary data, systematic observation, surveys, literature review.
Evidence: distributions, typologies, indicators.
Trap: official data at the wrong scale or out of date. Note the publication date and supplement locally.
EXPLAINwhy, through which mechanism+
Position: positivist, realist or critical.
Methods: document and policy analysis, process tracing, expert interviews, comparison.
Evidence: mechanisms and sequences you can trace.
Trap: claiming a law from one case. Claim a mechanism, and say where it may travel.
UNDERSTANDwhat it means to people+
Position: constructivist.
Methods: in-depth and street interviews, walking interviews, observation, discourse analysis, subjective mapping.
Evidence: themes, narratives, places that matter.
Trap: a few voices presented as the community.
JUDGEhow fair, effective or sustainable+
Position: critical or normative.
Methods: an evaluation framework, stakeholder power analysis, SWOT with perspectives, policy analysis.
Evidence: criteria applied to evidence.
Trap: choosing the criteria after you know the result.
PROPOSEhow could it be designed so that+
Position: pragmatic and creative.
Methods: research by design, visioning, scenarios, prototypes, workshops with feedback.
Evidence: design moves with a recorded reason and a recorded response.
Trap: design as illustration of findings that were already complete.
- Every SRQ has at least one method, and every method serves at least one SRQ.
- The method can do what the question asks. Mapping describes. It cannot explain why.
- The last column is something you could hold in your hands: a map, a typology, a set of themes, a tested scenario.
- The SRQ positions agree with each other, or you say openly where they differ (station 4).
- Read all the SRQ answers together. Do they answer the MRQ? If a gap remains, you are missing an SRQ.
Pick the SRQ whose answer people will doubt most. Give it two methods that look from different angles. SRQ1 in the example does this: a map shows where, and a household survey shows what people living there experience.
The pairing comes from Table 1 of Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025. The advice is ours.
| Your SRQ | Type | Method(s) | Why | What you hold at the end | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MRQ | |||||
| SRQ1 | |||||
| SRQ2 | |||||
| SRQ3 | |||||
| SRQ4 |
Problem
Write a problem statement that names a tension, not a topic.
- Place the reader in space, time and scale: where the issue lies, when it matters and at which level it is decided. Choose the most telling facts and leave out the rest (Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025).
- List the symptoms, then look for the tension. Congestion, energy poverty and water scarcity are symptoms. The tension is the contradiction or gap that current policies, markets or spatial arrangements fail to resolve.
- Say who carries the burden and who gains. Ask which populations or ecosystems bear uneven burdens or enjoy uneven benefits. This is where spatial justice enters.
- Expect the problem and the response to be tangled together. In planning, the way you define a problem already points to a kind of answer (Rittel & Webber, 1973). Define it so that more than one response stays possible.
- End on your objectives. The last move of the problem statement leads to what the work is for (station 2) and then to the main question.
Read a real problem statement. The example is a short problem statement on South Holland. Open each move to see what it does. The summaries are ours; the full text is in Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025.
1 · The commitment+
South Holland is legally committed to cutting greenhouse-gas emissions by 55% before 2030, in line with the EU’s “Fit for 55” policy. The statement starts with a goal everyone has signed up to.
2 · The uneven geography+
Large renewable infrastructures cluster in peri-urban municipalities already burdened by noise and air pollution. City centres collect subsidy flows and symbolic “green capital”. About one household in seven experiences energy poverty.
3 · The people who decide+
Planning decisions are dominated by technical agencies, utilities and experts. Migrant and low-income neighbourhoods have situated knowledge that rarely shapes infrastructure design.
4 · The gap+
Policy invokes a “just transition” but offers no robust measures linking where infrastructure goes, who takes part and what capabilities citizens gain.
5 · The risk and the call+
Without tackling how space, decision-making and narratives produce exclusion, the 2030 targets could be met through socially regressive means. The statement ends by calling for the energy landscape to be re-conceived as a collectively governed public good.
Topic, symptom or tension? Sort three statements drawn from that example, then open.
“South Holland is going through an energy transition.”Think first, then open +
It names a place and a theme but no contradiction. It could be the first line of an encyclopedia entry.
“About one household in seven experiences energy poverty.”Think first, then open +
A strong fact, used in the worked example. On its own it describes a condition. The tension comes when you join it to a cause: the places that host the infrastructure are not the places that gain.
“Targets could be met through socially regressive means, because the people who bear the infrastructure rarely shape it.”Think first, then open +
It names a gap between a goal and the way the goal is reached, says who is affected and points to a governance failure the study can examine. This is our paraphrase of the example’s argument.
Objectives
Write one research objective and one design objective, in a sentence each.
- Say what the work is for. Understand a situation, evaluate a policy, explain a pattern, propose a strategy, or co-design with a community. Most studio projects combine two or three. State your aims as the changes in society you want to make possible, such as creating public goods or widening collective capabilities (Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025).
- Do not make design the goal. The ambition is not a design for its own sake. Design is a way to bring about change.
- Split your objectives in two. Research objectives say what you want to know. Design objectives say what you want to change or propose. Each design objective should rest on a research objective.
- Decide how far you want to act. Wiek and Lang (2016) separate sustainability research that aims to understand a problem from research that aims to help solve it and shapes its own process to do so.
- Name your role. Wittmayer and Schäpke (2014) describe five roles researchers take in transitions. Pick the ones you accept and say which you leave aside.
- Anchor the aims in a theory of what is good. Consider the capability approach (Sen, Nussbaum) or Harvey’s right to the city, because they show whose agency grows and who benefits.
Five roles for researchers (Wittmayer & Schäpke, 2014). The role names come from the article. The readings for the studio are ours. Open each one and ask what it lets you claim, and what it rules out.
Change agent+
You push for a particular transition. In the studio: you argue for the strategy you design.
Knowledge broker+
You carry evidence between groups that do not talk to each other. In the studio: you translate between residents and public bodies.
Reflective scientist+
You analyse from some distance. In the studio: you stay an observer in interviews and hold back your own proposals.
Self-reflexive scientist+
You study your own part in the process. In the studio: you keep a log of how your presence changed a workshop.
Process facilitator+
You design and run encounters between people. In the studio: you run the workshop and keep it fair.
Research objective: to understand how the current spread of renewable-energy infrastructure distributes burdens and benefits, and how planning pathways let marginalised neighbourhoods in or keep them out. Design objective: to identify planning and design tools that could move the energy landscape towards community-owned, low-carbon solutions. These objectives are not stated in the source. We have read them from the example’s main question and four sub-questions.
Questions
Turn the tension into one main question and three to five sub-questions, each of one type.
- This station is a pointer. The full treatment of the main question, the sub-questions and their methods sits in the core above. Go there to write them.
- Give every SRQ one type. Describe, explain, understand or propose. The type decides what counts as an answer, and so which methods can serve.
- Order them. Studies often move from describing to explaining or understanding, and then to proposing. In a regional design studio the last SRQ is usually about design.
- Check the neighbours. Maxwell (2013) treats goals, conceptual framework, questions, methods and validity as one connected set. Change one, and check the others.
Four question types, each shown with a question from the two worked examples (Example 1: South Holland energy landscape; Example 2: neighbourhood safety and heat). The sorting of each into a type is ours.
Questions that ask whether a proposal is fair or effective (to judge) belong mostly to station 8.
Position
Say what counts as knowledge in each part of your study, and check that the question and the method agree.
- Climb Crotty’s ladder (1998): what counts as knowledge, your position, your approach, your methods. Each level constrains the one below it. Creswell and Creswell (2023) make a similar move when they ask you to join a worldview, a research strategy and methods.
- Place each question in the Delft model. Group physical sciences with a positivist position, social sciences with constructivist or critical positions, and design with pragmatic or creative ones (Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025, section on the Urbanism Integrated Knowledge Paradigm). A regional studio spans all of them. Your task is to say which question sits where.
- Know how you reason. Deduction tests a theory. Induction builds a pattern from cases. Abduction, the reasoning of design, starts from a surprise or a wanted result and proposes what could explain or deliver it (Dorst, 2011; Timmermans & Tavory, 2012).
- Say where you stand. Who you are and what you carry shapes what people tell you. Smith (2021) shows how research has served colonial power, which is a reason to ask whose knowledge your design treats as evidence.
Figure 3. Crotty’s four levels (1998), filled in with our reading of the South Holland example. Each answer constrains the next.
Match each question to its position. The labels are hidden. Decide, then open. The labels are our reading, and you may disagree.
SRQ1 · “To what extent does the current spatial configuration… shape the distribution of environmental burdens and benefits…?”Think first, then open +
The question asks for patterns that can be measured and compared, using maps and a survey. Report the limits of the data and the survey sample.
SRQ2 · “In what ways do existing planning pathways enable or constrain marginalized neighbourhoods…?”Think first, then open +
The question is about power: who can enter a decision and who cannot. Process tracing and interviews expose the mechanism.
SRQ3 · “How are energy poverty, cultural identity, and heritage framed in policy documents and regional media narratives…?”Think first, then open +
Meaning is made in texts and talk. Discourse analysis reads how things are framed. Do not generalise beyond the texts you read.
SRQ4 · “Which spatial-planning or design tools could reconfigure the urban energy landscape…?”Think first, then open +
Knowledge here is what can be shown to work with those affected. Scenario workshops and co-design test options and record the feedback.
Figure 4. Three modes of reasoning. Most studio work mixes them: you may deduce what to look for, induce a pattern from interviews, and abduce a design.
Methods
Choose one overall approach, then methods question by question, and put them in a table.
- Choose one overall approach for the study. Common options in planning and design: a case study (Yin, 2018), research by design (Roggema, 2016), a participatory or action-oriented approach, or a mix of these (Tashakkori et al., 2021). Jacobs and Cornelius (2022) lay out the design options for planning research.
- Know what a case can claim. Flyvbjerg (2006) argues that case studies can inform general knowledge, and that depth is their strength. Say what your case stands for, and what it does not.
- Choose methods question by question. The navigator in the core narrows the field by question type.
- Put it in a table. The SRQ, the methods, the reason and the expected insight (Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025). Tables 1 and 3 in the core are your models.
- Triangulate your most contested claim: at least two kinds of evidence from different angles. Urbanism problems are often ‘wicked’, which is why one method is rarely enough.
What a good methods table looks like. Open the models in the core, or go straight to the sheets on the Methods page. A quick test of your own table: cover the last column. Could someone guess what you expect to learn from the method alone?
Evidence
Plan what you will collect, how you will choose it, how you will analyse it, and what could go wrong.
- Write each method as what, why, how. What you did, why this method for this question, how you did it. Protocols and transcripts go in the appendix (Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025).
- Say how you chose your sources: sites, people, documents. Say who you could not reach and what that does to your findings.
- Say how raw material becomes findings: coding, thematic analysis, GIS overlay. Give every map and diagram a caption that states its point.
- Judge quality with the right yardstick. For qualitative work, Tracy (2010) proposes eight criteria. Lincoln and Guba (1985) frame trust in findings through credibility and related criteria.
- Sort out ethics before fieldwork. Follow the TU Delft Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) procedure, secure consent and protect anonymity. Say when you used AI tools (European Commission, 2024).
- Write limitations as constraints that shaped your choices, each with a way you reduced it.
What to include for each method. Open one at a time (Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025).
Literature review+
The approach (systematic, narrative or exploratory). How you selected sources: databases, keywords. The scope: period, region, themes. How the literature shaped your questions or design.
Observations+
Exploratory, systematic or both. How many observations, where and when. What you observed. Tools used. Why the site was chosen. The protocol goes in the appendix.
Interviews (short and in-depth)+
Who was interviewed, anonymised where needed. How participants were selected. The format. The themes. How transcripts were analysed. Protocols and transcripts go in the appendix.
Surveys+
How many responded. How it was distributed. Key topics. How data were analysed. Questions and answers go in the appendix.
Four kinds of ethical risk to think about in a methodology, with the HREC procedure on top (Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025).
Consent, anonymity and confidentiality, power imbalances, misrepresenting voices, cultural insensitivity, tokenism in participation.
Protection and storage, images and maps that reveal personal information, bias in collection, practices that exclude marginalised voices.
Plagiarism, manipulating results, hiding changes in method or limitations, undeclared conflicts of interest.
Not disclosing use, uncritically adopting biased output, replacing critical analysis, blurring authorship, tools trained on data taken without consent.
Eight criteria for good qualitative work (Tracy, 2010). The names come from Tracy. The short readings are ours.
Worthy topic+
Why does this problem matter now, and to whom?
Rich rigour+
Enough sites, voices and documents, analysed with care.
Sincerity+
You show your own position and what you changed along the way.
Credibility+
Thick description and evidence from more than one angle.
Resonance+
People and readers can recognise their world in it.
Significant contribution+
What the field or the region learns that it did not know.
Ethics+
Consent, anonymity, power and procedure handled and reported.
Meaningful coherence+
The chain holds: aims, methods and findings agree.
Limitations that help. Table 4 of Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025, shown in full.
| Method or data | Typical limitation | How to acknowledge or reduce it |
|---|---|---|
| Observations | Snapshot in time; weather-dependent; observer bias | Observe over several days and times; record conditions; triangulate |
| Interviews | Small sample; biased responses; language barriers | State selection criteria; anonymise; send questions in advance |
| Surveys | Low response rate; self-selection; limited reach | Report the response rate; compare with known demographics; use varied channels |
| Census and official data | Outdated; not available at neighbourhood level | Note the publication date; add local sources or fieldwork |
| GIS and spatial data | Incomplete layers; low resolution; outdated maps | Check visually on site; state accuracy limits; annotate maps |
| Design-based methods | Hard to measure outcomes; subjective interpretation | Say that design is exploratory; use visuals and feedback loops; combine with other evidence |
| Participatory workshops | Unequal participation; dominant voices; thin documentation | Use facilitation strategies; invite diverse voices; record reflections straight after |
| Field notes and sketches | Subjective; not standardised | Explain context and purpose; use with photos or maps |
| Literature review | Only published sources; language bias; reliance on the Global North | State scope and limits; seek grey literature; include diverse ways of knowing |
| Time scope | Short fieldwork; misses long-term change | Note timing and seasons; propose a longer study |
Design as research
Decide which design moves are inquiry, say what each is meant to find out, and record what it changed.
- Treat design as a way of finding out. In urbanism, research and design are not separate phases. Research uncovers conditions, design tests responses, and the results of design raise new questions (Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025).
- Say which kind of research each design activity is. Frayling (1993) separates research into design, for design and through design. Mapping the history of earlier plans is research into design. Gathering precedents for the brief is research for design. A sketch made to provoke a reaction is research through design.
- Use the Delft tradition. Nijhuis and Bobbink (2012) combine design research and research by design, and name four parts: plan analysis, comparative analysis, experimental design study and design study. Nijhuis and de Vries (2020) argue that design is itself a form of research and set out what it needs to count as one.
- Be open about the process. Research by designing is personal and tied to context, so it can look arbitrary or merely artistic without a clear account of the rationale, the tools and how each iteration helped answer the questions.
- Do not let ‘we designed’ count as evidence. A study of Dutch design offices found that practitioners mostly use research through design inside their ordinary process, not to test things on purpose (Cortesão & Lenzholzer, 2022). Define each move as a probe, a test or a proposal.
- Place design in regional strategy making. Balz (2024) presents regional design as a transformative approach to planning, and Albrechts (2004) ties vision to action through joint problem definition. The ten steps on the Regional planning and design page show the sequence.
- Keep a log of every move, with the four columns below.
Figure 5. Research and design in two cycles, after the model of iteration in Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025. The design in cycle 1 becomes the object of research in cycle 2.
Seven voices on design and research. Open one at a time. The summaries are ours, based on each source’s abstract or main argument, so read the source before you cite it.
Delft’s own collection · De Jong & Van der Voordt (2002)Open to see what it offers and how to use it+
A Delft University Press volume on ways to study and research urban, architectural and technical design.
Use it to see research into, for and by design placed side by side in the school’s own tradition.
Design-related research · Nijhuis & Bobbink (2012)Open to see what it offers and how to use it+
Proposes a strategy for landscape design that joins design research with research by design, and says it also fits urban design and architecture. It names plan analysis, comparative analysis, experimental design study and design study.
Use it to label what each of your drawings is doing, and to justify an early analysis of plans and precedents.
Read it: Article page (Inderscience)
Design as research · Nijhuis & de Vries (2020)Open to see what it offers and how to use it+
Examines research through design in landscape architecture, compares design with conventional research methods, discusses the kinds of knowledge it produces and turns criteria for responsible research into requirements for it.
Use it to write the paragraph that defends design as a method.
Read it: Article (DOI) · TU Delft Research Portal
Research through designing · Lenzholzer, Duchhart & Koh (2013)Open to see what it offers and how to use it+
A discussion of ‘research through designing’ in landscape architecture.
Use it to see how designing can be framed as a research method before you defend yours.
Read it: Article (ScienceDirect)
In practice · Cortesão & Lenzholzer (2022)Open to see what it offers and how to use it+
Looks at research through design in urban and landscape design practice, and finds it mostly folded into everyday design work.
Use it to remind yourself that a design that merely exists is not yet a finding.
Read it: Article (DOI)
Regional design · Balz (2021, 2024)Open to see what it offers and how to use it+
Balz, at TU Delft, builds a theory of regional design and presents it as a transformative approach to planning.
Use it to link your design work to strategy making at regional scale (see the Regional planning and design page).
Read it: 2021 chapter (DOI) · 2024 article (DOI)
Research through design in practice · Stappers & Giaccardi (2017)Open to see what it offers and how to use it+
An encyclopedia chapter that sets out research through design as an approach where making things generates knowledge.
Use it to borrow vocabulary from design research outside spatial planning.
Into, for or through? Frayling’s three relations (1993).
History, theory and precedent of the region and its plans.
Example: Reading how earlier regional plans handled the issue.
Inputs that a designer needs: analysis, programme, constraints.
Example: Mapping the conditions the design must respond to.
Designing as a way of finding out, with a question and a record.
Example: Drawing alternatives to provoke reactions from the people affected.
Four parts of design-related research (Nijhuis & Bobbink, 2012). Our one-line readings.
Study existing plans and designs to see how they were built.
Compare precedents or cases to find patterns.
Test an idea or principle by designing with it.
Design for the case itself, with the findings in hand.
Where the ten planning steps meet the research chain. The ten steps are on the Regional planning and design page. The mapping is our suggestion.
| Link in the research chain | Where it meets the ten planning steps | Why they meet |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Problem | Construct the region · Diagnose the problem | Both start by saying what is going on, and where |
| 2 Objectives | State the normative direction | Both say what should improve, and for whom |
| 4 Position | Choose theoretical lenses | Both say how you will see the problem |
| 5 Methods | Compare alternatives | Design options are tested with the methods you chose |
| 7 Design as research | Develop a vision · Select strategic interventions · Specify governance · Plan implementation | Design turns evidence into a proposal and tests it |
| 8 Evaluation | Evaluate and revise | Both close the loop |
A design-move log. Start one from your first sketch. The first row tells you what to write.
| Design move | Which question it serves | What it taught us | What we changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| What did you draw, model or stage? Which method does it belong to? | Which SRQ or part of the MRQ? | What did it show that you did not know? | Which question, method or design did you change, and why? |
Evaluation
Judge your work twice: did the research hold up, and does the proposal answer the problem?
- Judge the research. Run the three tests from the top of this page and the quality criteria from station 6.
- Judge the proposal. Use the Evaluation guide. Complete the common core, choose one pathway that matches your objective, and add at most one challenge lens.
- Close the loop. Go back to the tension in your problem statement. Say what has changed, who gains and loses, and what stays open.
- Use known weak spots as a checklist. Wiek et al. (2012) compared five sustainability science projects and found them strong on problem focus but weak on stakeholder participation, actionable results and wider impact.
- Reflect like an adult. Say what your position did to the work, which choices you would change and how your understanding moved (Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025). Pisano and Lingua (2024) show that effects of regional design can be examined empirically, in their case on how a river basin is seen and on soft governance networks.
Evaluation explorer. The Evaluation guide is a full page of its own. Here are its main parts in miniature, in the order you will need them. Open one at a time.
The basic rule: less is more+
Complete the common core. Choose one primary pathway that matches your objective. Add no more than one challenge lens.
Two pathways seem equally important? The one that defines success is your pathway. The other becomes the challenge lens that tests its blind spots.
Diagnose first: five levels of inquiryLinks back to your position at station 4+
Before evaluating, say what kind of strategy you have. These five questions look at different levels, so do not bundle them.
Ontology+
What does the strategy treat as real and changeable? Physical flows, institutions, lived experience, possible futures.
Epistemology+
What can count as knowledge about it? Measurements, models, documents, local knowledge, design testing. This is your position (station 4).
Methodology+
How are question, evidence and judgement connected? The reasoned structure of the inquiry, not a list of techniques.
Methods+
How is evidence produced and analysed? Mapping, modelling, interviews, scenarios, design iterations.
Axiology+
Which values and obligations define success? Efficiency, sustainability, justice, democracy, care, stewardship.
Write the strategy claim in one sentence+
Because [intervention] changes [mechanism], we expect [outcome] for [people, places or ecosystems] at [scale] over [time], provided [conditions]. We will test this using [evidence].
If you cannot finish the sentence, the problem is not the framework yet. The strategy needs a clearer causal and institutional logic.
The common core: six criteria for every team+
Answer all six, whatever pathway you choose. Rule of evidence: do not present an aspiration as a finding. A map can show a proposed relationship, but it does not prove the relationship will occur.
1 · Objective and scale+
Is the problem specific? Is the regional scale justified? Are beneficiaries and time horizon clear?
2 · Intervention logic+
How should each action produce the change you claim? Which actors, institutions, resources and earlier decisions does it depend on?
3 · Evidence+
What baseline, comparison, local knowledge or model supports the claim? What evidence could contradict it?
4 · Integrated sustainability+
How do social, environmental and economic effects interact? Are burdens pushed to another place, group or generation?
5 · Spatial justice+
Recognition: who and what is visible? Procedure: who shapes the decision? Distribution: who gains, who pays, who is exposed to risk?
6 · Alternatives and uncertainty+
What serious alternative did you consider? Which assumptions are fragile? What happens if the strategy underperforms?
Spatial justice as a lens: three dimensionsOften part of criterion 5 above+
The three dimensions need each other. The test for all three is parity of participation: can everyone affected take part in shaping the region as a peer?
Who gets what, where, and why?
Are essential goods and services shared so that they reduce structural inequality? Can marginalised groups really use them: affordable, close, safe, culturally accessible?
Who decides, and how?
Do the people most affected shape the decision, or are they only informed or consulted? Can the institution admit mistakes and change course?
Whose identities, histories and knowledge count?
Do planning frameworks protect the voice of groups historically denied full membership? Is there room for other worldviews and knowledge, not only the dominant one?
Beware of spatial fetishism: a map of fewer parks does not by itself prove injustice. Pair every map with an explanation of the process that produced it. The full lens, with nine indicators and a worked case, is on the Evaluation guide.
Choose your pathway (A to F)+
Pick the sentence nearest your main aim. Each pathway has a leading lens, four questions, useful evidence and a challenge lens. Below on this page you will find all six wired into the chain.
Pressure test with one ethical lens+
Choose the lens most likely to expose a serious weakness. Do not average incompatible judgements into a comforting score.
Consequences+
Use it when outcomes, trade-offs or uncertainty dominate. Ask: what are the likely benefits and harms for different groups, places and generations?
Rights and duties+
Use it when displacement, exclusion or coercion is at stake. Ask: which rights and duties must hold even if breaking them looks efficient?
Care+
Use it when dependency, vulnerability or upkeep is central. Ask: who depends on whom, and whose care work keeps the strategy going?
Virtue+
Use it when professional judgement and conduct matter. Ask: what integrity, courage, humility and responsibility does the strategy need?
Build a claim and evidence table+
One row for every major claim. A claim is major if the strategy is weaker without it. Columns: claim, framework criterion, indicator or evidence, source or method, who or what may be missed, judgement.
Score for revision, not decoration+
0 means absent or contradicted. 1 means asserted or partial. 2 means explicit and supported. The aim is to find weak reasoning.
A high total does not rescue a strategy that removes a community without consent. Revise if burdens are pushed elsewhere, the people affected are absent, a rendering is treated as proof, nobody could implement it, or it breaks rights.
Say it three ways: one claim, three audiencesSession 07: Show and Tell+
The claim and the evidence stay the same. Vocabulary, emphasis and form change. Do not raise certainty because the audience is not academic.
Academic abstract+
For reviewers and examiners, 250 to 300 words. Problem, aim or question, frameworks and methods, main finding or proposition, significance and limitation.
Professional post+
For practitioners and policymakers, 150 to 300 words. Lead claim, regional context, intervention, evidence, trade-off, implication for practice.
Public visual post+
For communities and wider publics, 100 to 150 words and one image. Place and community, the change proposed, who is affected, one uncertainty, a question or invitation.
Submission checklist+
Can your team state the claim in one sentence? Did you separate ontology, evidence and values? Did you complete the common core and choose one pathway for a stated reason? Does every major claim have a row? Did you consider one serious alternative and one way it could fail? Did you show who benefits, who bears burdens and who had power? Does implementation name actors, authority, resources, sequence and upkeep? Did you disclose uncertainty and one unresolved conflict? Do abstract and public text make the same claim?
Close the loop. Answer three questions in a paragraph each. Open to see what a strong answer contains.
Which parts of the original tension does the strategy resolve?Think first, then open +
Name the mechanism that removes the cause, and the evidence from your chain that it does.
Which parts does it only reduce?Think first, then open +
Say what remains, who still carries it, and why the strategy cannot go further.
What does it leave open, or make worse for someone?Think first, then open +
Every strategy has losers. Name them, and say how you would find out whether the loss is acceptable.
Six pathways, wired through the chain
The Pathways page and the Evaluation guide give six routes (A to F). Here each route is laid out link by link, so you can see how the theories, evidence and evaluation line up with your problem, questions and methods. The lenses, evidence and challenge lenses come from those two pages. The problem tension, question types and positions are our suggestions, so adapt them to your case.
Pathway A · Ecological transition and system performanceOur strategy mainly aims to: reduce environmental pressure or improve the performance and resilience of a regional system+
Pathway B · Access, well-being and human capabilitiesOur strategy mainly aims to: improve access, well-being, opportunity or the quality of shared services+
Pathway C · Commons and shared stewardshipOur strategy mainly aims to: govern, restore or protect a shared resource, landscape or body of knowledge+
Pathway D · Democratic governance and community agencyOur strategy mainly aims to: democratise decisions, improve participation or strengthen community agency+
Pathway E · Spatial propositions and socio-technical changeOur strategy mainly aims to: test a spatial proposition, design intervention or transition scenario+
Pathway F · Pluriversal and transformative futuresOur strategy mainly aims to: challenge dominant development assumptions and make room for multiple worlds or futures+
Pick your pathway from your objective, open its chain, and compare it line by line with your own draft. Where your draft is blank or differs, ask why. A difference is fine if you can explain it.
Plan the loop
Your report must show iteration as a structured account, in stages or cycles, with a diagram or timeline (Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025). Use this pacing as a starting point and replace the bars with your own.
Figure 6. Suggested pacing of the eight links over the quarter. The bars are advice. The session dates come from the 2027 timetable, and the session headers link to the session pages.
Where does your chain break?
Ten common failures, each a mismatch between links. Read the symptom, find the broken link, then open the card.
The problem is a topic, but the questions ask for policy measures.Think first, then open +
The questions answer a different problem. Return to the tension and rewrite the MRQ so it reads as the next sentence after your problem statement.
The objectives say co-design, but no participant appears in the methods.Think first, then open +
Add a participatory method with a real role for participants, or change the objectives to something you can deliver.
The MRQ asks why, but the only method is mapping.Think first, then open +
Mapping describes. Add a method that can explain, such as process tracing, document analysis or expert interviews.
The MRQ names a method.Think first, then open +
You have written a task. The MRQ is answered by the whole journey, and SRQs carry the methods. Move the method into an SRQ.
Six interviews are used to claim what ‘the community’ wants.Think first, then open +
An interview method cannot carry a claim about everyone. Narrow the claim or widen the evidence.
A method appears in the table with no sub-question beside it.Think first, then open +
A method with no question produces data with no use. Link it to an SRQ or drop it.
Maps and diagrams appear with no text saying what they show.Think first, then open +
Evidence is not a finding until you say what it shows. Add a caption that states the point.
Design arrives at the end and never changes the questions.Think first, then open +
Add a probe early, and report what it taught you and what you changed.
The evaluation uses criteria that the problem statement never mentioned.Think first, then open +
Judge the proposal against the tension you set up, or revise the problem statement and say that you did.
Every SRQ takes the same position and the same method.Think first, then open +
Look again: do you have four questions or one question asked four times? Give each SRQ its own type and evidence.
One page, eight links
Fill the canvas as you work through the stations, and revise it at the end of every week. Print this section or copy the boxes into Word. A complete canvas is the skeleton of your methodology chapter.
| SRQ | Method(s) | Why | What I expect to learn |
|---|---|---|---|
Ethics and data: ______________ AI use disclosed: yes / no Cycles planned: ____ Weakest link today: ______________
From canvas to chapter. The Report page asks the methodology chapter for four things. Here is where each comes from.
See the first five cells filled in, from the South Holland example+
1 Problem. South Holland is legally committed to cutting emissions by 55% before 2030, yet renewable infrastructure clusters in peri-urban municipalities already burdened, while decisions stay with technical agencies and experts and just-transition policy lacks measures for justice.
2 Objectives. (Our reading.) Research: understand how infrastructure distributes burdens and how planning pathways include or exclude. Design: identify tools that move the landscape towards community-owned, low-carbon solutions.
3 Questions. MRQ: How can South Holland’s urban energy landscape be re-designed to advance socio-spatial justice while meeting the province’s 2030 decarbonisation targets? Four SRQs on distribution, procedure, recognition and design instruments.
4 Position. (Our reading.) SRQ1 positivist-leaning, SRQ2 critical, SRQ3 constructivist, SRQ4 pragmatic and creative.
5 Methods. GIS equity mapping and household survey; process tracing and semi-structured interviews; critical discourse analysis; scenario workshops and co-design.
6 to 8. The example stops before these links. They are yours to design: sources and ethics, the design cycles, and the evaluation.
The texts behind this page
All examples in the core come from the Guide to Effective Report Writing in Urbanism (Rocco & Gonçalves, 2025). Where we add our own reading, the page says so. All other sources are real and were checked before publication.
Albrechts, L. (2004). Strategic (spatial) planning reexamined. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 31(5), 743–758. https://doi.org/10.1068/b3065
Balz, V. E. (2021). Contemporary theory for regional design. In M. Neuman & W. Zonneveld (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of regional design (pp. 66–86). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429290268-6
Balz, V. E. (2024). Regional design: A transformative approach to planning. Planning Practice & Research, 39(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/02697459.2024.2292895
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Pisano, C., & Lingua, V. (2024). The impact of regional design on river agreements: The case of the Ombrone River in Tuscany. Planning Practice & Research, 39(1), 32–53. https://doi.org/10.1080/02697459.2021.2005870
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