(Required of and limited to first-year M.Arch. II students.) In this course, students will develop technical and conceptual skills for expanding architectural design, design discourse, and critical design thinking. Design research is understood as a relational process of transdisciplinary knowledge-making that advances existing and new forms of architectural representation to address myriad complex and important issues demanding our collective attention. The seminar will be run as part seminar (close reading and writing) and part workshop (case studies, research exercises, group work) with the goal of building robust theoretical, contextual, and methodological foundations for each students’ individual thesis project.