Developing a Dialogic Design Review Process: Investigating Tools for Strengthening Multi-Directional Networks of Learning within the Design Studio

The practice of architecture is a subjective undertaking whereby the practitioner negotiates a trajectory through a landscape of multiple competing and often conflicting demands. The design studio, as a representation of real-world practice, should therefore prepare the student to operate within this complex field. This article describes and reflects upon my cultivation of a dialogic design review process, which aims to highlight the contested nature of architectural practice by cultivating multi-directional, collective, reflexive and critical conversations within the student cohort and the design studio. This process was created through continual architectural pedagogical practice over the past three years. Multiple methods and approaches have been used to reflect on and understand how this new teaching format performs. Findings from this reflection process are presented and conclusions are drawn about how it contributes to the overlapping and dynamic networks of learning within the design studio.