its an important topic

i am in my 4th year - arch

my design process : if it could help u 

i identify

users : ages - jobs - culture - religion 

site : sun - wind - culture - material 

project : what u will think when you hear your project name :thats bring so many idea just fly within your thoughts 

all of this give an enormous number of idea 

but what will make you better is the theme 

theme that you put to every building you make

the experience of users ,no matter how shape is your building (classic or parametric) it will give the same experience 

you and me have a very similar points and i dont think its a normal way ,not a lot of architects do this points ,absolutely it could be improved by time :) 

Hi Vendetta,

You are correct. There are so many way architecture design can be done. I found this when I googled:

http://www.slideshare.net/dotm/5-type-of-architecture-design-process-by-wan-muhammad

So, it tells you that there are 5 type of design process. But it is not the end. Even when you do analysis, you can choose your starting point (you can start from the project brief/building function, the human, the site, or your own creative idea).

The design process that is taught at today's school actually based on the modern architecture theory that emerged mostly during the early 20th century. When the postmodern time arrived during early 1970, literally it told you not to adhere only towards one certain design process.

If you want to improve (or maybe I should say it, DIVERSIFY) your design process, read a lot of book about design process to enrich your vocabulary about design method to invent your own process.

If you ask for a recommendation on book to read, I suggest you start with Charles Jencks and Geoffrey Broadbent (google them). But don't stop there, explore to broaden your knowledge and find your own style/process.

Notes: related to your master degree, there is a design process today that started from the material or from test data. Even if you add parametric design into that process, you will find the whole new way to design.

Best,

P

N.B. Don't hesitate to ask if there is something you don't understand from my post.

Vendetta, just to confirm you are at a Japanese Uni now?

I teach at Keio currently and did PhD at U of Tokyo. Our program is based on project based learning, so students are building all the time, and heavily involved in project management rather than design. Which is a bit unique in my mind. But, even so, like all Japanese universities students are required to do proper research for their thesis. Design is allowed, but hardly ever undertaken.

How this process came to be the norm I could not say, but in most schools in Japan you will be asked to do quantitative critical research that you can use to support an architecture related idea. The quality of this work is hard to maintain since we are not otherwise trained to do research like this, but it is nominally aimed at fitting the mold that scientists will use when they do research in their master's degrees. IE, it should be quantifiable, repeatable, and original. Architects are held to the same standard as scientists and engineers, and so there is no design requirement. you can study process for your thesis if you want to, but how to quantify it? 

The system is also lab based, which I guess you understand. That means you applied to join a lab rather than a school of architecture. Laboratories are founded on the idea that the professor has a mandate, and you buy into that when you apply. Design will be strongly influenced by the professor, and students are working as they would in an office, in support of the professor's ambition, not their own. Within this framework there is a lot of room to find your own way, but it takes a lot of self-awareness to pull it off.

The key point of this approach is that your professor is required to guide you and teach you the scientific method as he or she sees it. In practice a great deal of support will instead come from your fellow students. In our school deign studios offer the chance to develop an individual design process. But since students are so involved in the professor's  lab work, it is again difficult thing. From what I have seen in the last 10 years of studying and then teaching in Japan, the exceptional students are very immersed in the work of the professors and they engage in sometimes heated discussion with them. But nobody actively holds the students hands. In that respect it is very different from the western approach, where design methodologies are better laid out and explained though theory courses, etc.

No advice for how to find your way except that if you spend enough time doing design and working on lab projects you will eventually realize you have absorbed a method without noticing. If you want to take control of that process I'd advise reading and practicing on your own and thinking very critically about what you are doing. Its very hard to do, but over time you will probably begin to find some answers. None of it will come easily or quickly.

Thank you very much to spend your time to reply my question.

now im still studying in Japan
You answer make me more understand design process and Japanese academic system.

all comments is very useful for me and my friends, they also think our knowledge that we learn from university is not sufficient .

I will discuss with my friend and come back soon :)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/388886.Phylogenesis