Education in Focus
(Asynchronous - Online Only)
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Acting Designer: Using Performance-Inspired Defamiliarisation as a Research Method for Graphic Design View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Yaron Meron
Graphic design is an industry whose professionals have been said to wilfully obscure its practice, be resistant to research, and often inadequately communicate their own professional requirements. Acknowledging such obstacles, this paper focuses on the methods and outcomes from an experimental design research project which intervened in these identified disciplinary hurdles within graphic design. Acknowledging that performativity emerges from the wider field of design research, while also manifesting in a unique form within graphic design, the project used performative methods to defamiliarise graphic design practice. In doing so, it produced insights that are critical to understanding the discipline and have heretofore remained obfuscated and resistant to traditional research methods. These methods included interviews with graphic designers using themes of performative metaphor, leading to the creation of a semi-structured script. This script was then used in collaboration with a professional theatre director and a troupe of actors, who functioned as ‘proxy designers’ by re-performing emergent themes from the interviews during a series of workshops. Combining the project outcomes with existing discussions within graphic design research, the paper argues for the integration of defamiliarisation as a design practice into the formal pedagogy of graphic design education and academic research. Doing so will not only prepare its future practitioners for interaction with industry stakeholders but also enhance its academic design capital. Thus, performance-inspired defamiliarisation becomes a tool for enabling graphic design to further identify itself as a necessarily distinct academic discourse, as well as better preparing its future practitioners for industry.
Exploring Interior Design Students' Mathematical Units Construction and Coordination: Help with the Architectural Scale View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Heather Carlile Carter, Karen Zwanch, Diana Allison
Many undergraduate interior design students are unprepared for the required mathematical complexity (e.g., measurement, scale factor, and spatial reasoning). Although design, holistically, is one of six universal activities through which mathematics traditionally and as cultural knowledge are developed, researchers found no studies specific to interior design students. A small qualitative case study, therefore, was conducted to see if the mathematical theory of units construction and coordination could provide a framework to measure interior design students’ mathematical abilities. This framework was used both to interpret sophomore interior design students’ understanding of measurement and scale factor and to identify their level of mathematical application relative to the interior design profession. Students measured a furnished lab and drafted floor plans, and semi-structured clinical interviews evaluated the students’ stages (1-3) of units construction and coordination, ruler fluency, and scale factor reasoning. Results indicate 75% of the students were stage two and 25% were stage three. Stage two students applied whole number scale factors to linear measurements but could not accurately apply scale factors involving fractional linear units or square units. In contrast, stage three fluently applied whole number and fractional linear units and square units in the context of scale factor. The authors suggest that early assessment of interior design students’ units coordination structures is one method to evaluate their mathematical ability levels with the goal of applying specific interventions tailored to individual student needs. Ongoing research is expanding the number of students evaluated with the instrument; future research will evaluate potential interventions.
Going Beyond the Textbook: Incorporating a Book Club Model into the Interior Design Studio Course View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Adam Nash
Undergraduate interior design students arrive to studio courses with a variety of learning styles (Gregorc, 2003) and are typically enrolled in multiple classes. In general, the design studio education process is flexible enough to provide opportunities for students with different learning styles to engage in the required course content. However, interior design studio courses often require textbooks that range from technical knowledge to research and design application. While some students may struggle to purchase the textbooks, others may have difficulty retaining or understanding the technical content of the reading. This presents an issue with providing equitable access to education for interior design students. This presentation discusses a unique approach to engaging interior design students in required readings through careful curation of popular books and the organization of a “studio book club” during each semester’s interior design studio course. While the books are often written in a more “casual” writing style, the content is typically more relatable for students and can be an enjoyable experience. Additionally, these books can be provided by the interior design department each semester or are more accessible to students since the cost is usually much lower than the average cost of a textbook (Sylvan, 2018). As a result of this approach, interior design students surveyed have reported a deeper understanding of course content and a greater perceived benefit from the studio course content. The subsequent in-class discussions have increased student engagement in the required readings and resulted in more socially conscious design solutions.
Innovations and Limitations: A Collaborative Textile Design Workshop
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Cindy Gould
This paper presents the results of a one-week collaborative textile design workshop, which involved a group of twelve women from a small community in western India and two instructors: a textile-design teacher based in India and a textile-design professor from the U.S.A. In it's entirety, the textile workshop was twelve weeks long and was sponsored by an acclaimed design school in India and a state government entity. The textile professor from the U.S.A. had been invited to develop and co-teach a one-week innovative textile design module. This study provides insights into what stands out as simultaneously being one of the most amazing and yet disappointing experiences of the professor's long teaching career. It is a story about twelve remarkable Indian women whose technical stitching skills were technically expanded over the entire twelve-week workshop, and for a brief period of one week, whose creative and innovative textile design potential was encouraged and enthusiastically supported by the two workshop instructors. It is also a story about deeply engrained institutional pedagogy, one which touts innovation while simultaneously imposing strict, creativity-stifling limitations on various outreach programs, such as the textile-design workshop. The highlight is the narrative textiles created by the remarkable women who designed and stitched stories of personal and social significance.
Disrupting Design Education by Designing for One: Moving Beyond Practicing Practice View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Andrea Wilkinson
This paper shares the results of research into the designing for one approach, a term referring to a (student) designer designing for one individual in which the individual’s specific interests, accessible tools, capabilities, etc. shapes the designer’s process and are reflected in the resulting bespoke design. This particular study looked at four individual case studies in which design students of various disciplines and educational levels from universities both in the US and in Belgium used this approach. In order to identify how these cases were operating differently, these cases were analysed by a panel of 21 design education experts. Specifically, these cases were analysed for factors that moved the design process from the known and routine into areas that were unfamiliar and unknown. Eleven variables were identified in the designing for one approach that offered this shift. Next to this, the analysis included over 200 pages of interview transcripts from students in the four cases, looking to identify how these variables impacted the student’s experience. What this paper offers to readers, then, is a list of 11 change variables that both design researchers and educators can use and adapt to bring their students in contact with factors that challenge their discipline, medium and processes as well as the lecturer’s existing design educational practice.
Transforming Design History Online: Strategies and Challenges View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mona Kamal Ismail
The 2020 pandemic has created change in various parts of societies particularly the higher education sector. Capitalizing on outcomes of this change, both positive and negative repercussions, is the motive for a long overdue haul of the education system especially art & design education. The pandemic has forced us to rethink the entire education system’s readability such as suitable infrastructure, adequate faculty skills, learning management systems, and hybrid learning. It was a matter of adapting and inventing new methods and tools to adjust to the expected new normal. Redefining the pedagogical practices of the face-to-face teaching learning process into an online platform has various dimensions to consider. This was particularly evident in design history courses where critiquing design works, critical thinking, group discussions, and assessments rely on direct student / instructor interaction. This paper explores the effectiveness of distance learning strategies in achieving course learning outcomes through an online environment. It discusses experimented transformation strategies over three consecutive semesters. The paper demonstrates synchronous and asynchronous strategies used in design history courses. Furthermore, it argues that engaging students in a collaborative learning environment, detailed student feedback, and timed tests motivate learners and prevent plagiarism.
Mindful Design : Contemplative Approaches to the Design Process
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Kurt Espersen-Peters
This paper explores how mindful and contemplative thinking strategies can inform and structure the design process for the built environment. Mindfulness is commonly thought of as an individual self-care technique aimed at reducing stress and anxiety but it also plays an active role in non-design disciplines, such as education and pedagogy, politics, economics, indigenous rights, and social justice becoming a philosophy and methodology that transcends the private self-management needs of the individual to proactively engage larger communities and collectives. It is from this position where the potential of applying mindful approaches to interior design thinking and practice emerged. As a discipline that is centred on problem-solving, interior design thinking and practice could benefit from mindful approaches in developing critical design strategies and enhancing design practice. This hypothesis formed the basis of an interior design studio that examined how to integrate mindful and contemplative learning strategies into the initial research, ideation, and development phases of the design process by acknowledging the positive aspects of individual self-care while employing mindful, contemplative, and critical approaches in the understanding and resolution of interior design challenges. The results of the studio revealed an increased awareness of the student’s potential to understand, contextualize, and act in response to a series of design challenges. Under the guidance of mindful thinking and action, the students adopted new thinking strategies and achieved a new awareness of how interior design can make meaningful contributions to the world outside of themselves.
The Future of Dwelling: Sustainability, Adaptability, and Survivability View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Camilo Cerro
Adapting to climate change is a social, economic, and environmental imperative. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, states that climate change is widespread, rapid, and intensifying. While the pandemic distracted us, human-induced climate change has already resulted in many weather and climate extremes. Rising temperatures are fueling extreme weather with the average global temperature in the past five years among the highest on record. Even with ambitious action to slow greenhouse gas emissions, sea level will continue to rise, threatening low-lying islands and coastal areas. Countries will need to adapt to the climate crisis, as they experience ecological migration, drought, deforestation, acidifying oceans and shrinking sources of freshwater. With these in mind, last term, we focused the thematic of our 5th year studio from the implementation of sustainable design to adapting for survivability. Looking to use sustainable technologies to adapt to extreme environments took us to develop a sustainability studio course where sustainability became survivability. We migrated our site to Mars, where the students were faced with an inhospitable environment where every design decision had to do with survivability. The result was a series of self-sufficient, projects dependent on sustainable technologies to produce energy, food, and water. Students developed agency about the importance of sustainability and how it relates to their future while developing net positive projects designed to enhance the quality of life of its users. But more importantly, they came out with a set of tools that can be implemented on any future project, here on Earth.
Featured Blended Learning in Design Studies: Examining the Limitations and Opportunities View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ioanna Symeonidou
The paper examines current practice of blended education in design studies. It casts light on the possibilities that emerge from the use of synchronous and asynchronous teaching methodologies as well as the limitations that arise from the lack of tacit and experiential learning. This research departs from learning theories and from the specificities of design disciplines, where students learn through the development of a design project. Activities in the design studio involve team projects, physical model making, sketching, pin-up sessions, collaboration and discussions, therefore the transition from studio teaching to digital platforms brought a series of challenges. The paper addresses the problems that occur when design is taught outside the studio space, without the physical presence of students and the actual contact with physical materials and prototypes. The Covid crisis has found design educators considerably unprepared for the radical changes that occurred due to the pandemic. Nevertheless, this led to a globalized culture of solidarity and collaboration across countries, it gave rise to new synergies and the development of novel teaching methodologies that eliminate distance barriers. We witnessed an unprecedented sharing of information and good practices across the community of university professors who offered open access lectures and teaching material. At the same time new opportunities emerged from the online teaching platforms and blended learning methodologies. The lack of interaction with physical prototypes, led to the acceleration of the development of media such as virtual or augmented reality as teaching tools, providing an immersive environment for design experimentation and prototyping.
