The classical format for a practice-based dissertation in the arts requires a work of art, or a set of works, to be accompanied by a critical text, contextualising and reflecting on the exhibited work. This model appears to consider the text as a stable and perhaps also more objective or critical medium than the art work. Unless the artist in question works with specifically textual works, writing in itself is not expected to be explored as an experimental medium. This paper wishes to complicate this model and to discuss alternative ways of establishing the critical perspective demanded from an academic research practice towards ‘researching’ works of art (in this case specifically architecture and design). Three selected examples from my own writing practice as an architect, critic and scholar are drawn upon – two critical essays and my own PhD-dissertation which all play with dialogical, fictional and situational devices in the setting up of scenes for critical reflection. The paper is divided into two layers - an independent essay (one of the addressed "examples") is inserted within this outer shell. The inserted essay both demonstrates and conducts independently the argument of the paper and might be addressed both as an example of a potential "textual artefact" for a design-based research project, and in terms of its performance as a piece of critical writing. The project considered in the essay Re-writing the city, was never intended to be measured against the standards of an academic research project, even if it was produced by a team of architects deeply engaged in design teaching. And neither was the essay produced as a research paper. Nevertheless both the project, as described in the essay, and the essay itself, performs in various ways (for example through their respective play with construction / projection, narrative plot / situational character, doubtful reflection / suggestive fiction) that open up these works for such discursive encounters that a researching practice should entail. Yet, importantly, their articulation as artefacts (constructions, guide-book, essay) are anchored just well-enough, so as to not melt into air in the process. Explorations and experimentations with modes of writing offer crucial counterpoints to the actual performance of an art, architecture or design project. Writing, addressed both as a medium through which to develop a critical position towards the architectural, design, or art project; and as a means by which spatialities may be carefully explored and designed in words. In any PhD or research project developed through a design project, tools through which to advance a critical position, are essential in order to find a way out of the universe of the design (or art) project. By developing a sensitivity and control over language the artist-designer-researcher may discover new methods for jumping between positions, that is to take on the role of the critic in relation to the project or even within the project itself. This is also an essential requirement for academic research projects in contrast to other art, architecture, or design projects: a research project must, in some way, open up for discursive encounters. By developing a critical perspective on her or his work, the author/architect behind a project invites others to participate, not in awe, but in critical discussion.