Abstract

A workshop setting is a format that allows for intensive interaction among and with the students and their instructors, and is recognized as a highly effective and inspiring teaching method in design. RE-CREATE, an interdisciplinary seminar comprised of a series of three public lectures with workshops, focused on the topic of school design and user participation, allowing students to experience and learn about this important field of architectural practice from accomplished designers and architects. Three established practitioners and educators, known in the discipline as excellent and approachable teachers, served as workshop leaders for a new course format that facilitated the collaboration of students from Interior Design and Architecture through a co‐taught class. Their theoretical approach to the design of educational spaces and their involvement of future users throughout the process is exemplary and has been widely recognized in design and architecture. Each workshop began with a lecture followed by two days of concentrated interaction. Under guidance of the invited mentors, student teams collaborating with children, schoolteachers and parents from an urban public school formed assumptions that brought the design process to the surface as evidenced in both their design concepts and teamwork strategies. This intense process, acting as part extended charrette and part learning laboratory allows students first to experiment, then to participate and finally to take action. The workshop model has been recognized as a powerful learning setting for design students. Equally successful have been experiences involving future stakeholders in a guided design process. Innovative however is to combine these models, bringing design students and non-designers without prior exposure to architecture or interior design together. This provides students an opportunity to gain hands-on experience in collaborating with future users in the design process, a major factor in developing designs that better meet the needs of all stakeholders.