‘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.