The use of Design Case Studies in Design Education

Case studies for teaching purposes are commonplace in many disciplines such as management, law, health and life sciences. They are often used to demonstrate principles, precedents and insight into ‘real-life’ contemporary phenomena (the here and now) set against critical incidents, happenings or events over time (cause and effect). Yet there appears to be a dearth of literature surrounding the use and role of case studies in design. This chapter considers the role and use of case studies in design education following a systematic audit of 223 ‘cases’ in the design research literature by type, subject and field of research. The findings suggest that there are multiple descriptions and interpretations of the term ‘case study’. Although there are more traditional approaches to case based reasoning in architecture, overall a more innovative and dynamic discourse appears to be emerging. This is explored further with an example of innovative pedagogy being employed within a studio based design learning environment which develops the concept of case based designing.