The article explores the possibility of evaluating architectural
design as a product of scientific research, taking up a debate
raised by Roberta Amirante and developed here through references from the field of the philosophy of science. Contrasting positions on the scientific nature of the project are discussed: on the
one hand, those who sustain a clear separation between science
and technique, highlighting the impossibility of rationally justifying a design hypothesis without realising it; on the other hand,
those who show how scientific activity itself is intrinsically design-oriented, based on transformative interventions and cumulative instrumental traditions. Starting from the classic example
of C.S. Peirce’s beans, and with the help of Aristotele, the architectural project is interpreted as a ‘middle term’ between premises and outcomes, and it is suggested that the evaluation of the
project can be based on its ability to connect a plan of general
rules, traceable to the instrumental traditions of the discipline
and the productive complex that oversees the transformation of
space, to specific results, in a process analogous to the abductive
one. While acknowledging the difficulties of application and giving some suggestions, the article invites experimentation with
forms of evaluation that balance scientific rigour and disciplinary specificity.
