What is architectural research? That was the title of a University of Cambridge Department of Architecture symposium held at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London in September 2005. The idea of the symposium emerged during a battle to save Cambridge's Department of Architecture from closure in 2004. The University authorities had recommended closure because the Department's research rating in the UK's Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) of 2001 had dropped from 5 to 4 with a corresponding fall in research funding from the government. For a research-based university like Cambridge (where only three departments out of over 50 in the whole University scored below 5) research funding subsidises teaching so, for the University authorities, closure would have saved money and reduced its financial deficit. An outcry from within and outside the University saved the Cambridge Department, but important questions remain.

Sponsored by Vectorworks and SketchUp and convened by the new Director of the Architectural Association, Brett Steele, the RIBA's first annual Research Symposium, held on 3 October 2005, aimed to promote and disseminate architectural research work, and to encourage relationships between practice and research. At a time of growing concern over the future of research in architecture, and a sense of increasing marginalisation by the encroachment of other disciplines, both the variety of papers and the evident popularity of the event spoke of its continued vitality and relevance across the profession.

Developments in computer-aided design and manufacturing are breaking down divisions between designing and making, opening up radical new opportunities for the practice of architecture.

The development of architectural knowledge and research in Britain offers a context in which to interpret a recent study of research across UK architectural schools.

Bergson's concept of duration encapsulates a philosophy of the experience of time – which could also explain how spaces acquire temporal richness through construction and use.

The concluding part of a conservation study of a 455-year-old Venetian double house reveals its fascinating, multi-layered construction history.

A house built by physician Willem van der Heyden in 1891 was a remarkable precursor of contemporary building services and construction technologies, and of Modern architecture.

Architectural debates of the 1950s – particularly between ‘empirical’ and ‘formal’ strands of Modernism – are highlighted by a study of the architectural projects, biography and milieu of Colin St John Wilson.