From experiential cycles to knowledge systems: A five-stage model for multi-cohort design–build education

Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) has long provided a foundational account of how design knowledge emerges through iterative cycles of action and reflection. In architectural design–build education, Kolb's four-stage model (concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualisation, active experimentation) effectively scaffolds learning within self-contained courses. However, contemporary design–build programs increasingly operate across multiple courses, academic years and successive student cohorts, exposing a structural limitation in ELT: it does not account for how knowledge persists beyond the temporal boundary of a single cohort's learning cycle. This paper argues that multi-cohort, work-integrated design–build education functions as a longitudinal knowledge system rather than a sequence of discrete experiential learning episodes. Drawing on knowledge creation theory (Nonaka), typologies of knowledge forms (Blackler), and boundary knowledge transformation (Carlile), the paper proposes an expanded five-stage model of experiential learning that incorporates knowledge stabilisation and reactivation. This additional stage captures the deliberate externalisation of tacit, embodied, and encultured design knowledge into forms that can be documented, communicated, and mobilised by subsequent cohorts in projects spanning multiple courses, years, and cohorts. The model is developed through qualitative longitudinal analysis of three extended design–build projects. Comparative case analysis demonstrates how variation in stabilisation mechanisms shapes cumulative project development, technical refinement, and relational continuity in community-engaged contexts. By reframing experiential learning as a temporally extended and collective process of knowledge production, this article extends ELT beyond individual cycles and theorises design education as a cumulative, inter-cohort epistemic practice across design and allied disciplines. • Reframes experiential learning as a collective and temporally extended process • Extends ELT through knowledge stabilisation and reactivation across cohorts • Analyses three longitudinal architectural design–build case studies • Shows how stabilisation shapes cumulative design development and continuity • Contributes a framework for studying multi-cohort design knowledge production