Shaping the World
Empowered by Empathy, Community, and Design: Incorporating Evidenced-based Methods and Principles to Improve Scalability, Sustainability, and Equity in the Design Practice View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jeremy Swanston, Bernard John Canniffe
Design can play a fundamental role in community-engaged research initiatives, especially when inclusion and empathy are leveraged and elevated within a collaborative problem-solving environment. This paper introduces a framework for combing design principles with evidenced-based community participatory methods to empower diverse communities to become active agents in identifying meaningful solutions and creating transformative outcomes. Multidisciplinary case studies will be utilized throughout to highlight the fundamental role design plays in fostering collaborative environments built on trust, understanding, and inclusion to facilitate opportunities that can lead to impactful and positive change. Additionally, this study considers the challenges and benefits of forging sustainable and scalable partnerships between institutions and community leaders, and the lessons learned from extensive engagement with diverse community members. Positive outcomes are shared from multiple projects employing intentional design solutions to promote change and activate civic engagement in the current political and social climate.
Basic Design For Kids: A Descriptive Study on the Outputs of the Workshops View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Gülsün Pelin Sarıoğlu Erdoğdu
Basic Design is one of the fundamental courses of design education which had been first developed and implemented as a primary element of Bauhaus and Modernism in the 1920s, leading to significant changes in the related disciplines afterward. Some scholars argued that the significance of the course is so powerful that many other disciplines and age groups can benefit from it. Following this argument, a one-day workshop was developed for children’s hands on learning experience. Hosted by a number of municipal agencies in Istanbul, in these series of workshops kids aged 5-7 designed 2D basic design compositions. Workshops aim to be inclusive hence all were free of charge and open to all kids. The paper first discusses the potentials of basic design course as a way to critical and creative thinking and secondly presents the results of the workshop. It is argued that informel learning, studio environment, and critical thinking may be utilized for better education.
Design and Architecture Education from Manifestation to Transformation: An Integrated Position with a Holistic View to Shape the World More Meaningfully View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mridu Sahai Patnaik
In the world of creative industries, the seemingly interconnected domains of design and architecture exist in stringent silos. As a professional, I work parallely in both these environments on a daily basis - running a design institute and an architecture practice in the capital city of India; and I am constantly confronted with the explicit commonalities of the two environments and the obvious lack of knowledge exchange within the ecosystem which is physically as well as metaphorically in close proximity. The education, manifestation, scale, and hierarchical professional positions, pronounce the differences in the domains of architecture and design. Our globalized world today is faced with a multitude of societal challenges like climate change, food crisis, population, poverty and immigration among others, we increasingly see that many designers and architects have transitioned to becoming transformational designers - looking at new ways to change behaviors and the society (Jonas, et. all, 2015). It has also been discussed that such “wicked” issues cannot be tackled as they are inherently intertwined in a meta system of issues and therefore cannot be addressed in isolation.(Rittel & Webber,1973; Özbekhan, 1970). Complex situations therefore require a transdisciplinary approach (Jantsch,1972). My inquiry is at the helm of the domains of architecture and design to come up with a transformational approach in line with the context of The New European Bauhaus movement. To conceptualise a universal transformative approach/ framework/ methodology/ pedagogy/ policy applicable to the domains of architecture and design to shape society in a more holistic and purposeful way.
What Design Educators of Today Can Learn from Ancient Indian Rishis of the Past View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Abhishek Srivastava, Sonal Atreya
Ancient India has a long and illustrious history of learning and education. The teachers or Gurus (who were basically rishis or sages) in Gurukuls, Ashrams and Universities like- Taxila, Nalanda, Vikramshila, etc. played a vital part in this. There are several examples from ancient India that stand out and have valuable lessons for educators today and in the future. One example comes from Takshashila University, where Acharya Brahaspati uses a novel method of evaluating his student of Ayurveda before he graduates. Another example is when Maharishi Uddalaka describes how he teaches without any physical infra-structure. These instances demonstrate unique assessment and teaching methodologies. The purpose of this paper is to present instances like these and more in greater depth that illustrate key lessons for a design educator based on a literature study. The paper emphasizes various directions through takeaways that may be worked on and improved. Teachers and educators (both novice and experienced) will find the concepts useful in strengthening and improving their role as a teacher and becoming an educator in its truest sense.
The Future of Design Studio: Social Design for a Complicated World View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Camilo Cerro
The systemic interdependency between climate and every single aspect of life has made it evident that when we are talking about climate change, we really are talking about a change in everything. We have known about the problem for decades and still have not done anything consequential about it. Natural disasters are on the rise around the planet. In 2022, the world was devastated by hurricanes, floods, and wildfires of record-breaking proportions, all part of a cyclic trend that has accelerated in the last 10 years. Looking at a future where acres of the planet will be striped bear; coastlines and islands will vanish underwater; mass extinctions of flora and fauna are becoming common occurrence; and humanity is turning numb to human deaths. Even if the world stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, we would not escape the impending effects of climate change. It is ironical that in an attempt to make our environment more and more comfortable, humanity has destroyed that environment in the process. Forcing us to ask, how do you design for the future when the future we are designing for is a dystopia that design helped create? Design has always been about looking forward in a linear way, naively thinking that tomorrow will be better than yesterday. As we stand facing unavoidable apocalyptic scenarios, can design be resilient and adaptable to help humanity become more versatile? This paper explores the importance of Social Design in the coming decades.
