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Article published In: Register and Professional Discourse
Edited by Shelley Staples and Gavin Brookes
[Register Studies 7:1] 2025
► pp. 42–74

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Evaluative expression in architectural practice

An analysis of UK Design and Access Statements

ORCiD logo with link | London College of Contemporary Arts
ORCiD logo with link | Coventry University
Published online: 12 January 2026
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/rs.25017.lah
Abstract
Writing is the main medium of communication between practising architects, their clients and other professionals involved in the construction and regulation of the built environment (Forty, A. (2004). Words and buildings: A vocabulary of modern architecture. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Decq, O. (2013). Préface. In A. Gerber and B. Patterson (Eds.), Metaphors in architecture and urbanism: An introduction (1st ed.) (pp. 9–11). Bielefel, Germany: Transcript Publishing. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Binotto, J. (2013). My home is my symptom: A psychoanalytic plea for flawed architecture. In A. Gerber & B. Patterson (Eds.), Metaphors in architecture and urbanism: An introduction (1st ed.) (pp. 33–46). Bielefel, Germany: Transcript Publishing. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Gerber, A., & Patterson, B. (2013). Metaphors in architecture and urbanism. Bielefeld, Germany: Transcript Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). However, most prior studies of the language used by architects have examined texts from Architecture magazines and journals as opposed to practitioners’ choices relating to Field, Tenor and Mode in response to the social context of the workplace. Our paper investigates the register of Design and Access Statements (DASs), documents which all architects practising in the UK are required by law to submit to their local authorities when making planning applications. We chose the sub-system of Attitude within the theoretical framework of Appraisal (Martin, J. R. & White, P. R. R. (2005). The language of evaluation: Appraisal in English. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) to examine one aspect of the register of DASs: the linguistic resources used to evaluate architectural phenomena in order to justify architectural decisions to local clients and regulatory authorities. We found that inanimate entities in the DASs tended to be judged from an ethical and legal perspective, and were assigned feelings of desire, well-being or satisfaction. As one of the first investigations to relate the linguistic choices of practising architects to a specific situational context, our study should be relevant to all students of register and professional discourse, and particularly those involved in the professional development of practitioners, for example in Schools of Architecture.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
  • 3.Design and access statements
  • 4.The framework for the study
  • 5.Method
  • 6.Results and discussion
    • 6.1Appreciation
    • 6.2Judgment
    • 6.3Affect
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
References (71)
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