The architectural design studio is a central environment in which architectural knowledge is produced and legitimized. Through project briefs, representational tools, critique practices, and assessment criteria, the studio establishes particular ways of understanding space. This study does not question form as an essential dimension of architecture; rather, it examines the conditions under which the formal logic of a design becomes relatively autonomous from the social and lived production of space. Drawing on Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space, the study explains the mechanisms through which formalism is reproduced in architectural design education. A critical interpretive review was conducted through a systematic search of Persian and English sources and a thematic synthesis of theoretical and empirical studies. The corpus was analyzed using deductive codes derived from Lefebvre’s triad of perceived, conceived, and lived space, together with inductive codes emerging from architectural education literature. Six interconnected mechanisms were identified: abstraction of the problem and user, conversion of site experience into representational data, premature fixation of the formal concept, substitution of representation for spatial experience, direction of design through critique and power relations, and legitimation of product-oriented assessment. Together, these mechanisms establish the dominance of conceived space and subordinate spatial practices and lived experiences to representational and evaluative logics. Consequences include reducing space to a controllable object, encouraging students’ strategic conformity to implicit criteria, positioning users as passive recipients, and weakening the social understanding of space. The study concludes that overcoming formalism does not require eliminating form or representation. It requires a recursive relationship between conception, practice, and lived experience, together with coordinated changes throughout the design studio process.