Focus and Refocus
Helping Immigrant Indigenous Women by Means of Service Learning
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Maria Eugenia Cazares
A concrete definition to service learning, would be learning doing service. This project describes the experience to apply the methodology of service learning within a Design Identity Systems course, offered to students in the sophomore year, and how its application helped students understand the “being” and the “doing” of a responsible citizen and designer, and to awaken to help communities with less opportunities than theirs; to see in the practice of design not only a mere solution to a visual problem, but to understand that they can be capable to develop something good to help their community. How can we help design students follow this practice and let them notice that indeed, design can help communities and they, as responsible citizens would help make this change? We worked together with Zihuame Mochilla Association, and association which empowers indigenous women immigrants to the state of Nuevo León. These women make their living doing what they do best, or what they have learned from the mothers or grandmothers. They look for a better way of living selling their products among their communities, in markets, outside stores, at intersections on some streets. They support their families and are not happy with the little income they get. They know their products are very good and they want to improve their business.
Developing Critical Thinking in Architecture Students : A Case Study from the Ural School of Architecture
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Irina Tarasova
The paper shares an experience in developing critical thinking skills in architecture students at bachelor and master levels at the Ural State University of Architecture and Art in Ekaterinburg. This is currently an important challenge given the fact that the Federal Education Standard for architecture courses requires equipping students with a critical thinking competence. The paper demonstrates the potentialities of the methods of museum experiment and mind mapping in architectural education. These methods were selected through a critical review of existing methods and approaches to the generation of new ideas and solutions and identification of acceptable methods for teaching students of design, architecture and planning. These methods have been evaluated in the teaching practice and are illustrated by solutions developed by students with their help.
Care by Design: Exploring the Design Innovation Force in the Healthcare Context
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Angela Giambattista
The healthcare field is a sector that has significantly evolved more than anything else, especially from the points of view of technological and clinical innovation. The design discipline has also been measured with a radical change that has reconfigured the founding paradigms, opening itself up to other fields of knowledge and activating virtuous cooperation leading to innovative research and practices. In the last few years, there has been increasing interest in the potential of design methodologies and approaches to improve healthcare thanks to the ability of design to draw on a tradition of creative and divergent thinking able to face fundamental sociocultural challenges. The convergence of these two disciplines is configuring new scenarios of innovation where Design is a key element for the creation of products and services with a strong impact on our societies’ health, changing habits, structures, and the way users and designers look at medical products. This paper presents a transversal framework for a possible taxonomy of innovative healthcare products and services in which both the users and the technologies play a decisive role in the process of ideation, production, and consumption.
