Designing collaborative environments for strategic knowledge in design

This paper considers aspects of strategic knowledge in design and some implications for designing in collaborative environments. Two key questions underline the concerns. First, how can strategic knowledge for collaborative design be taught and second, what kind of computer-based collaborative designing might best support the learning of strategic knowledge? We argue that the support of learning of strategic knowledge in collaborative design by computer-mediated means must be based upon empirical evidence about the nature of learning and design practice in the real world. Examples of research by the authors that seeks to provide that evidence are described and an approach to computer system design and evaluation proposed.