A case study on case studies

Case study methodology is arguably among the most misunderstood and/or misused research techniques in architecture schools and practices alike, even if there are promising cross-, multi-, and transdisciplinary exemplars. As architecture is not only inherently an interdisciplinary field, but also increasingly a knowledge-based discipline in terms of both the profession and the scholarship, this paper looks at the education of architectural research methods in general, and that of the case study method in particular, in order to detect the value of case study methodology in design research. It must be pointed out, though, that the case study method is not regarded below as an educational tool per se (like the case study models used in education of medicine, business and law among others), nor as a resource of web-based case study systems and other collections of antecedent building projects. The 'architecture' of case study research design is not the focus of this paper either, although it is briefly discussed with regard to data generation. Instead, the goal is to define the terminology and techniques related to case studies as an architectural research method in academia. Multidisciplinary perspective in embedded and holistic case studies is the primary framework of this paper, including both quantitative and qualitative research.