Building² Stories. A Hermeneutic Approach to Studying Design Practice

In response to the lack of systematic study in design professions, the paper proposes an approach that empowers architectural practice and education to join forces in building a growing knowledge base of the profession. Following a case study methodology, teams of architecture students, interns and professionals engage into exploring the experience embodied by the best practices of significant architectural firms. Key to the methodology is the telling of ‘stories’ about active cases, i.e. building projects that are in the process of being designed and built. Stories result from interaction between the participants and procedures that guide the process behind these cases. As such, the methodology contrasts both with approaches that study cases as finished design products, and with approaches that study the process behind a case, yet squeeze it into a checklist of objectively knowable facts. In developing this methodology, we hope to provide a critical understanding of whether and how the best practices in the architectural profession can be recorded. Future research includes devising a format to represent and organize these records as a valuable knowledge resource of and for the profession.