About
Inter’Act Research Lab supports design practices through user-centric research
The Inter’Act research lab is part of the University of Liège, Belgium (Faculty of Applied Sciences, Dpt. of Urban & Environmental Engineering). We are a young and dynamic team of researchers, all showing different profiles and disciplines (architectural engineering, ergonomics, architecture, design, interior architecture).
We conduct fundamental and applied Design Research, aiming to provide a variety of models, user-centered methods and tools conducive to participation and innovation in design, architecture, urban planning and engineering.
We rely on qualitative and quantitative mixed methodologies to tackle complex contemporary issues. We combine fieldwork approaches to participatory strategies to collect or generate rich data, always involving communities of local stakeholders as to root our research in real-scale environments. We use mainly human and social sciences and design methodologies to design our research, and we develop a particular expertise on codesign tools to engage user’s participation throughout our research projects.
Through our projects and hands-on, operational research fields, we question and renew the interactions that develop over the course of a design project, between « designers » and « non-designers ». We are working to reinvent the vectors of intentionality of the designers, while offering the so-called non-designers a voice and a real role within a participatory process, for the benefit of any innovation process rooted in a specific territory.