COMMUNICATION IN THE DESIGN PROCESS.

By Stephen A. Brown. London: E & EN Spon. 2000. [pounds]24.99

Communication in the Design Process provides an exhaustive overview of the issues, problems and models for solving what has been an ages old problem. Designers, builders, users and clients speak different languages, have different ideas about projects, and different, even competing, expectations. This makes communication and co-operation between these groups problematic, at best often resulting in dissatisfaction with the process and the project on the part of one or another participant in the design and production of a building.

Stephen Brown examines the nature and reasons for the divide between the various actors in the process of realizing buildings. He also provides an overview of various older and newer suggestions for overcoming the gap between expectations and project realization. There is much in the work that is already known but much of which it is also useful to be reminded. Notably, the discussion of the differences within a category of actors, for example developers, owing to levels of experience, and the way they go about building their teams should be of great interest to architects attempting to find ways to work in a more expeditious and cooperative manner with clients. There is also some that is new like the critical discussion of various innovative methods for opening communication or bridging the gaps between expectation and realization.

It is disappointing, though, that a book dedicated to communication reads like a report, is tediously written and is replete with diagrams and charts that do little to illuminate the issues under discussion.