Your letter (p. 197) asks ‘where is the research engaging with the big issues that ought to be concerning the profession?’. Concluding, you ask ‘Couldn't the level of thinking and analysis applied to exquisite garden sheds in the pages of arq be applied to such bigger things that are affecting the lives of millions of people…? And if such work is already being done let everyone hear about it…’

Housing dominates this issue of arq. In his description of four recent projects designed for United Kingdom sites by his Netherlands practice, Hans van der Heiden considers housing as an element at the city scale (pp. 12–31). While in arq's first ‘revisit’ article, Fiona McLachlan reviews the performance in use of a large 1960s Edinburgh housing scheme (pp. 33–50). Common to the schemes in both articles is the use of the perimeter block or enclave as a housing form.

‘We're going to start by researching research’ says RIBA Vice-President Jack Pringle (pp. 104–106 of this issue). It's a statement that will send shivers down the spine of all those who recall the boring and generally useless lists of university research published by a well-intentioned Architects' Journal in the 1970s. But read on – for Pringle emphasises that ‘the complicated thing is bringing everything together’ into the quite ordinary buildings and places designed not by ‘star’ architects but by the vast majority of the profession.

Generative design techniques (‘Digital canopy: high-end computation/low-tech construction’ arq 6/3, pp230–245) tend to intrigue and slightly scare (arq 6/4, pp293–294 – letter from Sam Price) at the same time. It is reassuring to know that computers will only be as smart as we can program them. We can even control if they learn and how they learn. Design capabilities using generative methods agreeably are a product of both how smart we make the generative algorithms and how intelligently designers can make use of them. A human designer alone probably would not have come up with the canopy design built and a computer alone could not have.

In case there was any doubt, the discussions in recent issues of arq, and from other coverage of the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), demonstrate that the role, status and purpose of research in the field of architecture at the beginning of the twenty-first century are problematic to say the least. The nature of architectural practice is at an equally problematic stage, with the profession appearing to many weak, disorganized and ill-equipped to stand up to external threats of various kinds. And although it is common to hear the view – which we subscribe to – that connections between academic research (and the schools more generally) and professional practice are poor and ought to be improved, it is not easy to work out whether this state of affairs is more a cause or a consequence of the difficulties on both sides.

By coincidence I lived for a couple of years in a small flat in Matti Välikangas' Olympic Village in Helsinki (1939–40) to which Hildi Hawkins referred in Insight: ‘Home, sweet home’ (arq 7/1, pp 94–96). I too reflected my time in such environments onto my home here: the hyper-efficient planning, daylighting, wet-floor bathrooms, double-rebated doors with lift-off hinges etc. Along with a quality that I also sense in some design of the same period here; seemingly quite ordinary buildings imbued with the hopes of an embryonic welfare state and the care of the architects and builders who built them.

In their article, ‘Casbah: a brief history of a design concept’, (arq 6/4, pp. 321–336) Robert Oxman and his co-authors state that the matchbox models are ‘unsigned’, (caption to Figure 3b). They are not. Elsewhere, they are always credited to Herman Hertzberger. for instance in Wim van Heuvel, Structuralism in Dutch Architecture, 010 Publishers, Rotterdam, 1992, p. 13 and also in monographs on Hertzberger.

Peter Blundell Jones' and Jian Kang's article ‘Acoustic form in the Modern Movement’ (arq 7/1, pp 75–85) eloquently describes how functional form may sometimes have been driven by acoustical requirements – the clearest example is perhaps the fruitful collaboration between Scharoun, the architect, and Cremer, the acoustician, in the design of the Berlin Philharmonie.

The interview with Jack Pringle (7/2, pp104–106) provides both an interesting account of how we got here and some useful pointers towards a more integrated future which, hopefully, the RIBA can be at the heart of. The background to this situation is, of course, more fully documented in previous issues of arq including my own paper (6/4, pp297–299).

I would like to respond to one of the points raised by Richard Murphy in his perceptive review of my book on Geoffrey Bawa (arq 7/1, pp86–88). His description of Bawa as an architect ‘in the Third World but decidedly not of it’ exercised by the fact that Bawa, like Luis Barragán, failed to address ‘pressing problems of population explosion and rapid urbanization’ in his work and that ‘with the exception of some work for the Catholic Church, Bawa's opus was built exclusively for the country's elite’.

arq's interview with Jack Pringle (6/3, pp104–106) puts a strong case for why the profession needs to engage with education and research, if it is to sustain a robust body of knowledge relevant to its clients' continuously changing demands.

Sarah Wigglesworth and Jane Wernick's article, ‘Clear Water Garden; A Study In Design Research and Collaboration’ (arq 6/2, pp214–229) contained (p216) the following passage:

‘There was a very productive equality in our working relationship. Partly because the power structure between different genders and knowledges was almost entirely absent.’

Is the subject of ‘gender difference’ an appropriate subject for a research journal? Perhaps it is only in the realm if architecture that this question could possibly arise at all. Elsewhere, in the real world, we know gender difference is accorded the seriousness and consequent academic research status it deserves as it is understood as a fundamental component within our culture.

Paolo Tombesi's intriguing article (7/2, pp140–154) on the genesis of Australia's Parliament House inevitably raises the question of possible comparisons with Scotland's Parliamentary saga. The differences, of course, are as striking as the similarities. Tombesi's position is that the Canberra building's design, which he dislikes, is explicable by the commissioning process, and the desire of the Australians to have reliability and delivery on time. Apart from the obvious formality of plan and pomposity of approach (although we are not altogether exempt from recent exemplars of either in twenty-first-century Britain), he takes it for granted that the architecture is entirely mediocre. Yet I would have been intrigued to know whether the spaces between the curved walls of the gathering spaces building and the Chambers and offices on either side, had any qualities.

The repercussions of the results of the UK Government's highly controversial 2000 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) for architecture (arq 6/3, pp 203–207) continue to resonate. But this time the university architecture schools are not alone. For the first time ever, the RIBA, recognizing the seriousness of the situation for the profession, is giving architectural research the attention it deserves. Jack Pringle is masterminding the Institute's response. In late September, arq reminded him of his initial response to the RAE debacle (arq 6/3, pp 197–198), and asked him about current developments.

Paolo Tombesi's investigation of Australia's Parliament House, Canberra (arq 7/2, pp140–154) shows how the ambitions of Public Sector clients are influenced by the political context. The review by John Sergeant of Weston's excellent biography of Utzon in the same issue (pp183–186), provides some insight into his tragedy and triumph at Sydney: the Opera House.

I don't necessarily think that gender comments are out of place in a research publication, but it is slightly unsatisfactory to bump into them in passing.

Architect, author and teacher, Michael Brawne was also an arq contributor and referee. His article ‘Research, design and Popper’ published in our second issue (1/2, pp 10–15) was an analysis of the similarity between architectural design and scientific research based on Karl Popper's hypothetico-deductive theory. It cut straight to the heart of the declared subject of this journal. Reading it again, one can almost hear Michael – with his characteristically precise enunciation (and often exquisitely drawly voice) – elucidating his argument.

The following celebration of Michael and his contribution to architecture speaks eloquently about the man and his teaching but surprisingly little about his completed buildings – especially those of the '60s and '70s. There was something very rigorous about these. Indeed, Charles Correa asserts that the houses in Hampstead are ‘among the half-dozen most important pieces of architecture’ constructed in the UK over the last 50 years.

It was in the first Hampstead house that, in 1962, there emerged the surface mounted vertical mullions that were to appear again – always subtly related to the internal spatial arrangement – in later projects. And there was his use on the upper levels of his buildings of steeply sloping Cor-Ten sheet (something that today's generation, who seem to have rediscovered this problematic material, could well learn from). In plan, his buildings often made a powerful use of the diagonal (the Cambridge influence perhaps?) and occasionally revealed his admiration for Alvar Aalto's work. This thoughtful, highly distinctive body of work extended from country cottage conversions and extensions to competition designs such as his ‘groundscraper’ high-density housing entry for the Portsdown competition.

And what of Michael's exhibition designs? Following the 1965 publication of his book, The New Museum, it was a field in London which he seemed to dominate for much of the late '60s and the '70s – with shows such as the stunning Art in Revolution at the Hayward Gallery in 1971 and the exquisite Age of Neo-Classicism at the Royal Academy in the following year. In the mid '90s, his work for ecclesiastical museums in Germany was equally elegant and well-judged. And, over the last six years, recalling his artist father, he turned to making sculpture at Bath College.

Michael Brawne is remembered here by some of his contemporaries, fellow teachers and students. The first contribution, by Bob Allies, is reproduced by permission from The Independent newspaper in which it appeared on 16 August 2003.

Sarah Wigglesworth and Jane Wernick's article explores how a close collaboration in design can become research when ideas are passed freely between the designers, leading to unexpected and original solutions.

Eight years after the first issue, a new team based at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University is assuming editorial responsibility for arq.