| Design review is public evaluation of private and public architectural design schemes. Through design review, local governments control the visual quality of additions and alterations to the existing built environment. Design review is widely prevalent in the United States and it could significantly impact the physical fabric of US cities for better or for worse (Scheer, 1993, 1994). There is, however, widespread dissatisfaction with the way design review is conducted (Scheer, 1994; Hough, 1994; Lai, 1994; Delafons, 1990), but there are very few systematic empirical studies for finding possible causes. The literature on design review and planning suggests problems with information could be a source of this dissatisfaction.; This study looks at design review in a city in the mid-western United States to understand the role of information in the process. The data for the study were collected through interviews, participant-observation, public and internal documents, and local newspapers. The information was analyzed using explanation-building (Yin, 1989) and discourse analysis based on Gasper and George's (1998) tabular representation of arguments.; The study provides empirical evidence for explanations of connections between information and dissatisfaction with the review process. First, design review decisions in contentious cases were often made with inadequate information. Second, information needed to make design review decisions appears to be tightly controlled by a few individuals, leading to the concentration of power in a few hands. These individuals exercise this power to distort and manipulate the information and thus the final decision. Third, design review discourse is found to be rife with fallacious arguments, and thus design review decisions are characterized by faulty reasoning.; In methodological terms, the study tests the value of the discourse table and graphical index for representing and studying discourses. The discourse table was a systematic way of getting a more detailed view of the discourse, and revealed missing argument components and fallacious argumentation. By in relationships among the different arguments in the discourse. Still, some aspects of this method turned out to be very tedious and time consuming, while some others were difficult to carry out.; This study was intended to be exploratory and revelatory, and the findings are limited to the city under study. Further research is needed to confirm and generalize these findings. |
