An Evaluation of the Association for Architectural Education Student Competitions within the Framework of Schön’s Reflective Practice Theor

This study aims to examine the student competitions organized by the Association for Architectural Education (ArchED) within the framework of Donald A. Schön’s theory of reflective practice. Developed by Donald A. Schön, this theory provides a significant conceptual tool for understanding the ways of thinking and learning processes that architecture students develop when faced with complex and uncertain design problems. The architectural design studio is built upon the intellectual process of designing, experimentation, and the continuous revision and reproduction of ideas through critiques. MimED competitions, as secondary platforms, involve projects that have already undergone the studio process and are re-presented for evaluation by a competition jury. With participation from architecture schools across various regions of Turkey and students from all academic levels, MimED competitions offer a nationwide panorama of architectural education. This study explores how competitions align with the concepts defined in Schön’s reflective practice theory through their design processes, feedback mechanisms, representational tools, and pedagogical functions. Reflective practice is a structure that finds its counterpart both in the architecture school studio processes and in the competition context. In this respect, the reflection of studio outputs in a national competition and their evaluation by a national jury can be defined as the formation of a national-scale design studio.