This course explores skills in research methodologies with which designers question and critique design orthodoxies through practice. The seminar introduces a range of research approaches including documented observation and quantitative data analysis, in combination with a case study that compares design objects, criticism and manifestos. Implementing such methodologies, students develop a research proposal that addresses a social issue related to design and globalisation or design and environmental sustainability, and prototype an experimental design that probes a convention in contemporary design discourse.