A Ten-Year View of Chinese Landscape Architecture Design Research (2011–2020)

The subjectivity and creative thinking activities of the design practice have caused the dilemma of conducting academic researches. How to integrate the process of obtaining research results through design practice into the academic research system has become a common problem facing the design discipline. As a methodology of practice and research, the “design research” is managing to respond to this. This research first clarifies the boundaries and classification criteria of the design researches and, on this basis, sorts out the design research results published in Chinese Landscape Architecture and Landscape Architecture Journal over the past decade (2011–2020). By using the bibliometric theory, it systematically analyzes the development characteristics and trends of design researches and three main modes — research about design (RaD), research for design (RfD), and research through design (RtD). It has found that landscape architecture design researches have significantly improved in depth, breadth and academic quality. There are also some phenomena: the development of design theory and design criticism in RaD is relatively stagnant. RfD shifts from pre-design research serving specific objects to knowledge research helping to construct the design process. In the few RtD literature, scholars prefer the post-positivism and transformational approaches. The discussion based on the classification of landscape architecture design researches helps scholars jump out of their inherent perspective, understand the relationship between design and research, and clarify their own research tendencies.