Design-driven and artistic research in architecture has gained visibility, yet its processes often remain difficult to articulate and evaluate within conventional methodological frameworks. This paper proposes trajectory as an operative concept for understanding and communicating practice-based architectural research. Rather than treating research as a linear sequence of predefined stages, trajectories are conceptualised as emergent curves drawn through design actions, spatial interventions and critical reflection. The study adopts a conceptual methodology based on an interpretive synthesis of four strands of literature: hermeneutics and assemblage thinking; research-through-design and design-driven approaches; debates on artistic research and practice as research; and methodological work on mess, drift and networks. The resulting framework characterises trajectories as lines-in-action, non-predictable yet traceable processes, spatio-temporal dynamics of territorialisation and deterritorialisation, and reflexive narratives supported by specific documentation devices. Three composite vignettes from architectural design research—a housing studio, a territorial landscape project and a practice-based doctoral investigation on adaptive reuse— illustrate how trajectories can be traced and analysed in different contexts. The paper argues that a trajectory-based perspective allows architectural research to remain experimentally open while meeting demands for methodological rigour and transparency, and outlines implications for the formulation, documentation and evaluation of design-driven and artistic research.
João Sequeira (Mon,) studied this question.