Abstract:

Studio-based learning (SBL) constitutes an epistemic structure central to design as a discipline. Within the studio, knowledge emerges through iterative acts of making, externalization, critique, and reframing. Design reasoning unfolds dialogically around artefacts-in-progress, where propositions are tested, interpretations negotiated, and design judgment developed through situated interaction. As design education increasingly moves into fully online environments, the challenge is not simply technological mediation but the reconfiguration of these epistemic conditions.

This paper examines the development of a design studio within a fully online Bachelor’s programme in Digital Design at Kristianstad University. Over a two-year period, a structured studio model was implemented across two core courses. The format centers on small-group critique sessions focused on work-in-progress. Synchronous discussions via video conferencing are combined with asynchronous commentary on shared digital boards, enabling iterative development across extended temporal cycles.

Drawing on qualitative interviews with teachers and second- and third-year students, the study analyses how processes of externalization, critique, and design judgment are negotiated within a distributed learning environment—where students are spatially separated from one another and their teachers, yet able to collaborate despite these structural constraints. Particular attention is given to how digital artefacts function as epistemic objects and how facilitators scaffold reframing by introducing conceptual prompts, precedent artefacts, and disciplinary perspectives. Critique is approached not as evaluation but as a generative mechanism in the production of shared and evolving design knowledge.

The findings indicate that while embodied co-presence is transformed, core epistemic dynamics—iterative problem framing, reflective dialogue with representations, and collective negotiation of meaning—can be sustained through deliberate orchestration of visibility, temporality, and structured interaction. The paper argues that virtual studios should be understood not as digital replicas of physical environments but as reconfigurations of studio-based learning in distributed form. By reconstructing its underlying conditions, the virtual studio extends rather than diminishes the epistemic foundations of design education.

Keywords:

Design education, Studiobased learning, remote studies.