What does it take to consistently develop emerging professionals into great architects and designers? At Diamond Schmitt, that question has led to a deeper challenge: how to scale the judgment and expertise of principals across a growing, distributed team. 

Traditional approaches — redlines, one-on-one mentoring, in-the-moment feedback — remain valuable, but they're limited in reach and hard to scale. So the studio began exploring a different model: one where knowledge could be captured, shared, and reused to support both learning and design excellence. 

As part of Knowledge Architecture’s annual conference KA Connect, Principal Michael Leckman and Sam Horton, Learning & Development Consultant will share how Diamond Schmitt evolved the studio’s learning and development program, Diamond Schmitt University (DSU), and its Synthesis-powered platform (DSX), into a knowledge amplification system. 

The session will trace the studio's needs analysis that refocused learning on core competencies, a dual-track model balancing foundational knowledge with creative exploration, and a shift toward shorter, more targeted content designed for real-world application, resulting in a learning system that does more than inform — it extends the reach of expertise across the firm. 

Learn more and register at Knowledge Architecture.