ABSTRACT
In the study of architectural practice it is now increasingly necessary to consider the nature of design as a relational process. As with other advanced producer service firms, architects are transmitting a knowledge product, one that has specific attributes that have to travel through space from the design studio (a dense factory of embodied specialist design knowledge) to the site office, and thence to the construction site itself. How, then, are such material transfers sustained and interpreted? How are these social relations and cultural contacts – so important to client relations and repeat work – enhanced and retained? How significant is the charisma of the elite designer in all of this? How is the design studio organised and what role does it play as a node or site in a network of flows? And how are information technology and new forms of project work transforming the design process?
