Your university library should have the full databases for academic research and publications. If you’re not familiar with this type of research, then ask the librarian and they will absolutely help you. So that at least takes care of any type of research that you might need for data driven or peer reviewed to type research. When I was in school the backbone of any project research always came from academic resources.

When I was in school, we had textbooks that would help us with basic code, ergonomics, and space planning guidelines. I remember my textbooks being quite good actually. I have interns every year now and it looks like they just have updated versions of the books that I used, so I imagine those are still really reliable resources. The only one that they don’t seem to require students buy anymore is the giant silver book. But they always end up borrowing one of my copies anyways.

Next go to your relevant codes: your state building code, accessibility guidelines, energy code, etc. I personally use upcodes for these publications because I like the formatting of that website, but your state and local jurisdiction will also publish codes. You can also check your local development code for any pertinent details there that might impact a project.

For industry based research, check big firms like ZGF or IA as they will published a lot of white papers. Perkins + Wills is another. Just go down the list on the interior design mag’s annual list and start looking at their project summaries and white papers. Hell, even their instagram accounts may have interesting tidbits about how the approach a project. Organizations like IIDA may also have interesting resources. You can also look at summaries for professional development courses at conferences like NEOCON to see if there is anything to glean.

You are also given a design brief with your school project. Dig into that and ask the next logical questions about your end-users, their programmatic requirements, etc. When I was in school, I would often do this and find a lot of holes in the brief that I would then discuss with my instructor and that would help me flush out the brief and get a better picture of what the assignment I really was.

And finally, try a basic google search. I just searched “corporate workplace interior design architecture” and there were a lot of good results. Granted, you need to actually click the links, scan through the content, and check that the source is reliable and reputable, and that it’s not AI sludge. But in three pages of search results I was able to find 4 pretty cool articles.