ID2 –

TEACHING METHOD

In this course the students will develop excellent practical design skills, along with a plethora of ‘conceptual tools’ so that they can use with their design skills to realise exceptional projects that are not only aesthetically and functionally strong, but also conceptually provocative, compelling, impactful and relevant to our changing times.

This trajectory of teaching will be accomplished through participative processes, interdisciplinary methods of operation, research-based working and bottom up approaches. Here is a broad overview:

FUNDAMENTALS OF DESIGN

This module will run over the duration of the entire course will ensure that the students to acquire an excellent set of fundamental and practical design skills, that will be refined continually. This is by no means an exhaustive or curated list and will be developed fully in the transition semester.

• – – Rapid prototyping - lo-fi and analogue all the way to high quality, refined, provocative prototyping making and building.
• – – Refinement & detail – making and imagining at a high level.
• – – Understanding technical plausibility and know-how of using specific tools - from physical computing, open source hardware and software, all the way to laser cutting, model making and 3D printing.
• – – High quality material and aesthetic understanding and decision making.
• – – Interaction and experience design fundamentals.
• – – Anthropological studies - working with individuals, communities, institutes.
• – – Communication through sketching, writing, editing, filmmaking and presenting.

CONCEPTUAL TOOLS

Alongside the practical skills, students will learn to develop conceptual rigour and an accompanying set of intangible tools and tactics that will help them explore the implications of a complex world and create their own visions within it.

• – – Futurescaping: A means of exploring different worlds and perspectives, then communicating them through stories, scenarios and prototyping that help people imagine the unimaginable.
• – – Legible mappings of technologies, systems and infrastructures.
• – – Understanding cultural and ecological contexts
• – – Learning tactical design and new forms of tacit activism.
• – – Politics of design
• – – Developing multidisciplinary collaborations and partnerships
• – – Learning decision making, critical evaluation, self knowledge and awareness – originality.

STUDIO PROJECT THEMES

The studio projects will become an opportunity for students to develop specific areas for concentrated agency and deploy the tools most effective for the challenges they are responding to, or the change they wish to create. Here are just some of the thematic explorations we encourage the students to undertake for their studio projects.

• – – Design for and with Autonomous Systems
• – – Lived Realities of Industry 4.0
• – – Adaptation and Mitigation of climate change
• – – Implications of living in the Cloud
• – – New Economies and the Global South

SEMINARS AND WORKSHOPS

Interspersed with the regular teaching programs, we regularly invite accomplished designers, artists, technologists, scientists, and businesses to participate in a program of lectures and workshop which will enable the students to stay abreast with the major shifts in the world. This will also put them in direct contact with industry partners and can potentially lead to unique employment and collaboration opportunities.

EVALUATION CRITERIA

What criteria do we use to evaluate a project?
It does not make sense to only evaluate a final outcome: Design is both about outcome and process.

CONTEXT DEVELOPMENT AND AWARENESS

What are the issues the project addresses?
What does it challenge? How does it contribute to change?
Where does this project sit in the world? even historically? For whom is it important and why?

OUTCOME

DESIGN LANGUAGE
How well have form, material, colour, behaviour, technology and human psychology been used?
Does the design challenge existing languages? and reflect the issues of our time?

TECHNICAL/EXPERT KNOWLEDGE
Which experts have been consulted?
Is there a good balance between good technical and cultural integration.

SYNTHESIS
Do all the parts come together elegantly?
Brave or Safe? Too much? not enough? has there been a good edit?

PROCESS

EXPLORATION PROCESSES
What methods of experimentation have been used? – Does the project demonstrate good decision making qualities?
Were new methods invented?
Is there a good balance between context/expert research and form generation?
How about the ability to keep the flow of work consistent on the different layers?

COMMUNICATION
how successful has the communication of the project and of the process been?
What methods of communication have been used?
How inventive are those methods?

SELF DEVELOPMENT
Has there been an awareness of progress?
Is there self awareness concerning strengths and weaknesses?