Architecture Design Review

Yesterday I stopped by my Alma Mater, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, to visit my old professors. As it turned out there was a studio exhibition that evening so after catching up with my old teachers and an old classmate I got to review a couple designs.
I take a fairly formulaic approach to start off most presentations. The first step is to just let the student present their work and see what they talk about and what they avoid. Once they've done that I ask "What do you want to get out of this review?" I love this question. It's an important one that they're almost never prepared to answer. It's not that I want to throw them off, it's that they're there to learn and figuring out what it is they need to learn is important.
After that I'll start addressing the design, the presentation, their presentation skills, the overall concept, materiality, etc. When going over this I try to treat the discussion as a sandwich of sorts. Open with some praise for certain things, then move on to the criticisms and wrap up with some encouragement. I close with asking them if they have any questions, whether it's about the design, working professionally or whatever. They always have questions.
The two students I reviewed were in high contrast to each other. The first had a very polished presentation but his design had some very basic problems related to layout, circulation and use. The second student had sketches on trace paper pinned to the wall and only had plans drawn out, but her understanding of space was clearly very good and her layout and approach to the site were great. Both clearly had challenges and strengths and in fact, they would probably learn a lot from doing a collaborative project together.
When the review was over they were both, not surprisingly, very curious about the IDP process and the state of the job market. In this economy I rather envy them, being in undergrad with grad school still ahead of them makes for a nice buffer during these rough economic times.
When it was over I realized how much I miss doing design reviews. When I return home I'll have to make a point of getting in to them again at the local university.