PhD Thesis

To work effectively as a team, architects must not only reflect on their individual experience, but also learn from each other. This thesis investigated both processes – reflecting and learning – through three research studies. The first study examined six design teams’ reflective practices and team learning qualities when they pitched for an architectural project valued at $2 billion. The second study surveyed 105 architects and revealed distinct team learning behaviours that was linked closely to team effectiveness. The last study tested a one-hour online workshop with an architecture firm to reflect on and learn from their team processes, which resulted in gradual improvements in their team performance.

keywords: Reflective Practice; Team learning

• Supervisors: Prof Jane Burry, Prof Eva Kyndt, Prof Anita Kocsis
• year: January 2018 – November 2021
• download: Tan – 2024 – From Reflective Practitioner to Learning Professionals (254 pages)

This project explores learning and reflection practices in architectural teams when they design various projects. When architects reflect‐on‐action (i.e. think about what they designed), they learn from experience. When they reflect‐in‐action (i.e. unconsciously think about what they are designing), they learn from experiencing. Such reflective practices help architects to build project knowledge and to deliver their projects. But most architects work in teams, alongside other individuals from the building industry, who have different ways of learning and knowledge perspectives. This begs the question; how do learning and reflective practices affect the performance of architecture teams in delivering design outcomes?

This project addresses this question by 1) using reflective practice, team learning and design collaboration literature to frame how architects learn as a team, 2) exploring how team learning influences the competitive performance of architecture teams, 3) measuring how team learning affects architecture team performance, and 4) experimenting within a reflective workshop to help architects improve their team learning skills and thus, team performance. The article concludes by discussing the theoretical contributions and practical implications of reflective practices in the fields of architecture and design.

postscript: This thesis summary was published on The Design Journal in 2021.

keywords: team learning; reflective practice; design collaboration; architecture

• download as: journal article
• download as: Thesis research summary (pp xiii-xxi)

This chapter introduces the research project by stating the research questions and objectives of the research. Then, it describes the theoretical frameworks used in this interdisciplinary research, the knowledge gaps that exist in and between the different research disciplines and the contributions this research offers to the theory and practice, of reflection and team learning processes carried out by architectural teams to develop design projects more effectively. Finally, it ends by presenting a dissertation compass to navigate this thesis.

download: Chapter 1 Introduction (pp 3-21)

This chapter describes the literature on established and commonly used methodologies in research generally. This chapter uses the metaphor of the research ‘onion’ (Saunders et al., 2015) to describe the different depths to research activities, starting with research philosophy through to data collection methods.

It is necessary to provide a breadth of research methods for this research, for the thesis adopts a critical realist approach (Robson and McCartan, 2016) to execute the three studies (the case study, the survey, and the intervention). I needed to be aware of the available research methods before determining the most suitable approach to designing the studies.

This chapter also describes the general design of the three research studies. More specific method descriptions will be found in Chapters 05, 06 and 07, under the “Method” section.

download: Chapter 4 Research methodology (pp 61-75)

It is close to forty years since Donald Schön published his seminal work, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. This publication emerged during the peak of the Design Methods movement when works like Archer’s Systemic Method for Designers and Simon’s The Science of the Artificial argued for recognising design processes as scientific inquiries. Coincidentally, Schön posited an alternative view to rationalising design processes, called Professional Artistry, which is implicit professional knowledge. Using protocol studies in various disciplines, he demonstrated that professionals reflect‐in‐action while working and, as a result, learn and produce knowledge only through doing (knowing‐in‐action). Since then, design theorists, researchers and professionals have used this writing enthusiastically to articulate that designers learn more about their design process and their design project as they design. Forty years on, The Reflective Practitioner continues to serve many design researchers as a foundation of learning from the experience of their design processes. However, this theory has limitations that must be recognised and addressed to stay relevant in today’s design context. Reflective Practitioner was written for individuals, whereas nowadays, designers often work in teams. Therefore, the next step is to consider how individual reflections are shared and learnt with other designers so that the team benefits from its collective reflective practices.

postscript: This review was published on Design Issues in 2023.

keywords: Reflective Practice; Experiential Learning; Team Learning

• download as: journal article
• download as: Chapter 2 Theoretical evolution (pp 23 – 41)

This chapter proposes that designers can improve their collaboration effectiveness by fostering team learning behaviours. Most of the design collaboration literature focuses on how to transmit information between members of a design team effectively. However, team learning literature looks at how to effectively transmit, understand, refine, and retransmit information between members of that team with clearer specificity. Despite the extant literature on design collaboration, there has been little to no research that has examined the collaborative model and the effects of team learning behaviours on delivering collaborative designs. This paper provides a literature overview of design collaboration, which has predominantly studied design activities through a social lens. The paper then provides examples of the growing body of team learning literature from organisational learning, which focuses on the learning processes of teams that collaborate on a project, regardless of their discipline. The paper then synthesises both strands of design research and organisational learning research, before proposing that team learning behaviours are more explicit in indicating effective design collaborations than our existing research on communicating practices.

postscript: This review was published on Design Research Society 2020 Conference in 2020.

keywords: design collaboration; team learning; collaborative behaviours

• download as: conference paper
• download as: Chapter 3 Literature review (pp 45 – 60)

Highlights

• I used Reflective Practice to describe the design pitch of architectural teams.
• I observed six teams present in a real-world architecture competition in 2018.
• Winning team demonstrated the most Framing, Moving and Evaluating language
• I interviewed the competition jury to find out the teams’ learning behaviours.
• The winning team was perceived to demonstrate the most team learning behaviours.

This chapter examines the role of Reflective Practice and Team Learning in the performance of architecture teams when they pitch their proposals in a design competition. Pitching proposals is significant to architects because pitching designs in competitions is one of the ways architects procure jobs. Previous researchers used the principles of Reflective Practice to describe how teams design together. This study adds to those works by using the principles of Reflective Practice to describe how teams communicate their design to clients. Additionally, this case study introduces team learning concepts to describe how clients perceive design teams when pitching their proposals. In 2018, I observed six architecture teams pitch their design in an architecture competition, analysed the documents presented and interviewed the jury. Results revealed that the winning team demonstrated the most Framing, Moving and Evaluating language in their pitch. They were also perceived to have demonstrated the most team learning behaviours amongst all the competitors.

postscript: This case study was published on The Design Journal in 2023.

keywords: Reflective Practice; team learning behaviour; team performance

• download as: journal article
• download as: Chapter 5 Case Study (pp 75 – 104)

Highlights

• I surveyed 105 Australian architects on their learning behaviours and performance.
• Team learning behaviours were positively associated with team performance.
• Such behaviours were team reflexivity, error communication and boundary-crossing.
• I interviewed nine architects to identify common team learning behaviours.
• Learning behaviours were either project-specific or part of office procedures.

This chapter examines the role of team learning behaviours in the performance of architectural teams. This is significant to architects because most architects work in teams within their firm and with external consultants in a project team. Although there is a growing body of research on the behaviours of design teams, this survey is one of the first studies conducted specifically on the learning behaviours of architects working in teams. I conducted a survey with 105 architecture firms in Victoria, Australia to collect perceptions on the team learning behaviour and performance of the architecture teams, and interviewed nine architects to explore the practices they used to facilitate team learning behaviours. Results from the survey demonstrated that team reflexivity, error communication and boundary-crossing behaviours were positively associated with team effectiveness and employee satisfaction.

postscript: This survey was published on Design Studies in 2023.

keywords: team learning behaviour; team performance; architecture teams

• download as: journal article
• download as: Chapter 6 Survey (pp 105 – 127)

Highlights

• I developed a one-hour online workshop to facilitate group reflection and improve team processes in architecture teams.
• I used the team learning behaviour questionnaire to measure changes due to the workshop.
• I tested the workshop with three teams in an architecture firm.
• After twelve weeks, there was slight improvement between the workshop’s focus and the specific team process across all three teams.

This chapter examines how a design‐based workshop can promote team reflection. I present an intervention study conducted using an action research framework with three working teams. The workshop uses design thinking methodology to structure the activities and leverages reflective practice inherent in design processes to engage participants on different levels of reflection. In 2020, I conducted the workshop with sixteen employees of an architecture firm in Sydney, Australia. I surveyed the employees’ team learning behaviour pre‐ and postworkshop to identify any changes over the twelve‐week study. The findings indicate that the activities engaged participants to reflect independently on their own experience and collectively as a team. While the questionnaire findings showed the teams had mixed results regarding changes in their team behaviour, there was a positive relationship between the reflection workshop’s focus and the specific team process across all three teams.

keywords: team reflection; reflective workshop; design thinking

• download: Chapter 7 Intervention (pp 129 – 156)

This chapter integrates the findings from the three studies to answer the overarching research question, How do reflecting and learning contribute to the performance of architecture teams? The discussion on reflecting and learning starts with a brief description of how architecture is practiced historically and currently. Then, I describe the role of reflecting and learning in architecture teams, focusing on

1. reflecting in competitions pitches,
2. reflecting at work,
3. team learning in competition pitches,
4. team learning at work, and
5. reflective learning on team processes.

Finally, I conclude on how architecture teams can go from being Reflective Practitioners to being Learning Professionals.

download: Chapter 8 Discussion and Chapter 9 Conclusion (pp 159-184)