Design Research Reload:

The paper reflects on the role of design in the proposal presented for the redevelopment process of a rural settlement in China. Design is here intended as the operative and, at the same time, ideal framework where architectural research moves, on one side, intersecting with other disciplines and, on the other side, renegotiating its own boundaries. The design strategy tested in this research focuses on the methodological synapses between the interpretative understanding of a site, supported by quantitative and qualitative evidence, and the grafting of design choices that claim relations of coherence, necessity, and creativity by enabling a dynamic ecology of practice. In the end, the design is a tool of both modification and understanding: two complementary aspects of processes related to architectural research.