The gap between professional education and practice in architecture has been much criticized. This situation has happened since architecture became an academic discipline taught in university setting, where new knowledge of architecture based on scientific methods has been produced without being able to be integrated into traditional design discipline. Changing situation of professionalism and architectural practice in contemporary society has also affected to create the gap between architectural education and practice. As long as architecture is a discipline, architectural education in school cannot be reduced to vocational training. At the same time, traditional fields of architectural practice cannot meet the new demands that contemporary mode of architectural production require. In the fragmentation of the discipline and with the increasing gap between theory and practice, contemporary architectural design education needs to redefine itself as a research much in the same way as experimental laboratory and to realign itself with practice. All academic research cannot be integrated in design discipline, but the process of design needs to develop a form of instrumental theory for design, incorporating the newly developed knowledge into design process as much as possible.