Abstract

This paper examines the benefits, and challenges, of using culture as a focal point and the anthropological as an approach in a design programme. The case is made for an educational environment that interrogates and uses culture as both an internalizing and externalizing focus. Projects are presented and analysed—from an identity project that paired up North American and Asian students to a study abroad course where students worked and lived in another culture. Finally, the text also examines the benefits, and challenges, of using culture and the anthropologic as points of interrogation in design pedagogy.