Design education for the conceptual age: An education responding to the needs of the future
Jan and Richard Coker
Fifteen papers under five themes were presented at the Icsid Design Education Conference 2009 as part of the Icsid World Design Congress 2009 in Singapore. With the theme, "Design Difference - Design Education 2050," the conference was a place to develop and encourage an international platform for the debate on design education.
This paper describes the epistemology, pedagogy and praxis of undergraduate and postgraduate curricula in Collaborative Design Science, addressing both contemporary design issues and those of the future. It asserts that design curricula in the future need to include comprehensive design skills and also be underpinned by social ecology; this moves design education away from a singular focus on commercialism and toward enhancing human flourishing and collaboration with multiple and diverse stakeholders, cultures, societies and disciplines.
Fifteen papers under five themes were presented at the Icsid Design Education Conference 2009 as part of the Icsid World Design Congress 2009 in Singapore. With the theme, "Design Difference - Design Education 2050," the conference was a place to develop and encourage an international platform for the debate on design education.
This paper describes the epistemology, pedagogy and praxis of undergraduate and postgraduate curricula in Collaborative Design Science, addressing both contemporary design issues and those of the future. It asserts that design curricula in the future need to include comprehensive design skills and also be underpinned by social ecology; this moves design education away from a singular focus on commercialism and toward enhancing human flourishing and collaboration with multiple and diverse stakeholders, cultures, societies and disciplines.
Summary
For the past 10 years the authors have been advocating, developing, trialing and calling for industrial design curricula to address the future by engaging a platform of ethics and focusing education toward social ecology and service to humanity.
It has been our contention that for industrial design education to remain viable it needs to teach collaborative skills toward universal design agendas within a context that promotes sustainability. This is now lucidly apparent as the whole world struggles its way through a move from selfishness to global cooperation. Designers have a choice of participating as members of the greater human family, to create new possibilities for social and planetary survival or risk being sidelined in the grand enterprise of creating the future.
The application of skills and knowledge addressed by design schools of the last half-century are vital if humanity is to create a truly aesthetic and holistic future, a place of flourishing for cultures the world around. Design education must however be enhanced with new knowledge that embraces diversity, multiculturalism, and collaboration.
This education is more likely to be effective if it adopts an ethic of service to the whole of humanity and works toward the goal of social ecology, which is, as Zimmerman describes, an applied philosophical system identifying the planet as a set of social/physical systems or networks of systems that make up a larger socio/ecosphere.
Design education must include new techniques for working with what Pink calls "A whole new mind", and in collaboration with 'reasoning' use other capabilities inherent in the mind. Capabilities he describes as 'high-concept, high- touch senses', 'design', 'story', 'symphony', 'empathy', 'play, and 'meaning'.
We designers and educators must recognise that the problems facing the design community are the same as those facing all of humanity. These problems are wicked problems; complex design problems that have no basis for terminating problem solving activities and cannot be fully defined such as: how to make potable water accessible to all of the planets' peoples.
Such problems require more from the human brain than just intuition or intellectual rigor. They also require a means of incorporating both into the complexity of designing for comprehensive systems solutions, and engaging collaborative and synergistic approaches and methods.
The implications reinforce the need to engage many people simultaneously. Working within a university context, the authors trialed approaches to achieving this goal between 2000 and 2005. The resulting practical and theoretical research identified a clear direction for undergraduate and postgraduate education. This paper outlines this curriculum and gives concrete examples of projects exemplifying its success.
Want to read more? Download the full paper (PDF - 292KB).*
It has been our contention that for industrial design education to remain viable it needs to teach collaborative skills toward universal design agendas within a context that promotes sustainability. This is now lucidly apparent as the whole world struggles its way through a move from selfishness to global cooperation. Designers have a choice of participating as members of the greater human family, to create new possibilities for social and planetary survival or risk being sidelined in the grand enterprise of creating the future.
The application of skills and knowledge addressed by design schools of the last half-century are vital if humanity is to create a truly aesthetic and holistic future, a place of flourishing for cultures the world around. Design education must however be enhanced with new knowledge that embraces diversity, multiculturalism, and collaboration.
This education is more likely to be effective if it adopts an ethic of service to the whole of humanity and works toward the goal of social ecology, which is, as Zimmerman describes, an applied philosophical system identifying the planet as a set of social/physical systems or networks of systems that make up a larger socio/ecosphere.
Design education must include new techniques for working with what Pink calls "A whole new mind", and in collaboration with 'reasoning' use other capabilities inherent in the mind. Capabilities he describes as 'high-concept, high- touch senses', 'design', 'story', 'symphony', 'empathy', 'play, and 'meaning'.
We designers and educators must recognise that the problems facing the design community are the same as those facing all of humanity. These problems are wicked problems; complex design problems that have no basis for terminating problem solving activities and cannot be fully defined such as: how to make potable water accessible to all of the planets' peoples.
Such problems require more from the human brain than just intuition or intellectual rigor. They also require a means of incorporating both into the complexity of designing for comprehensive systems solutions, and engaging collaborative and synergistic approaches and methods.
The implications reinforce the need to engage many people simultaneously. Working within a university context, the authors trialed approaches to achieving this goal between 2000 and 2005. The resulting practical and theoretical research identified a clear direction for undergraduate and postgraduate education. This paper outlines this curriculum and gives concrete examples of projects exemplifying its success.
Want to read more? Download the full paper (PDF - 292KB).*
*This paper has been provided for educational purposes may not be republished without permission from the author.
About the authors
Jan Coker, PhD, MA, specialises in design strategy. For over 30 years she has been an innovator in educational principles and methodologies. Jan has brought innovation to creative, collaborative educational environments in numerous and varied settings, from grassroots projects to creating and developing the design methodology stream at the University of South Australia where she lectured for 7 years.
With a strong background in art, Jan has been a professional in design for California-based Industrial Design and Development, and SunWest Design, where she managed a variety of design projects. She now divides her time between art and consulting in the area of collaborative innovation and curriculum development.
Creator of an effective methodology for structuring wicked problems, Jan lives with her husband, Richard, in Adelaide, Australia, where they combine their design and educational experience to synthesise several disciplines to create a cohesive, comprehensive, collaborative design ethic for our future and to advocate change and innovation in the professional and educational communities.
Jan Coker PhD, Design Strategist
Upfront3 1/174 East Terrace
Adelaide, Australia 5000
t: +61 0403 855 539
e:
Richard Coker, MS abt, MA, has 30 years of proven, effective design experience, addressing a wide range of challenges for disadvantaged, diverse, and disabled groups. His commitment to universal design principles, coupled with his consistent championing for socially and ecologically viable design, has allowed him to provide a successful and socially responsible classroom setting as a design professor at University of Wisconsin-Stout and Syracuse University, as well as several Australian universities.
He currently is a senior lecturer in design at the University of South Australia in Adelaide, where he resides with his wife, Jan. His early professional career includes working for the office of Charles and Ray Eames on projects including the IBM Museum, National Aquarium proposal, and soft pad furniture group. Then as a city planner for Los Angeles he directed a project to address blight in the city.
He has done extensive design consulting and was a staff designer at Chase Design in Skaneateles NY. as well as an independent consultant on design work relating to sustainability.
Richard studied at University of Illinois - Champaign/Urbana. His post graduate study was under Jay Doblin and Charles Owen at the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology - Chicago. He also holds an MA from California State University - Fresno.
Richard Coker, MS, MA, Sr Lecturer
University of South Australia
Adelaide, Australia 5000
f: +61 8 83020211
e: richard.coker@unisa.edu.au
With a strong background in art, Jan has been a professional in design for California-based Industrial Design and Development, and SunWest Design, where she managed a variety of design projects. She now divides her time between art and consulting in the area of collaborative innovation and curriculum development.
Creator of an effective methodology for structuring wicked problems, Jan lives with her husband, Richard, in Adelaide, Australia, where they combine their design and educational experience to synthesise several disciplines to create a cohesive, comprehensive, collaborative design ethic for our future and to advocate change and innovation in the professional and educational communities.
Jan Coker PhD, Design Strategist
Upfront3 1/174 East Terrace
Adelaide, Australia 5000
t: +61 0403 855 539
e:
Richard Coker, MS abt, MA, has 30 years of proven, effective design experience, addressing a wide range of challenges for disadvantaged, diverse, and disabled groups. His commitment to universal design principles, coupled with his consistent championing for socially and ecologically viable design, has allowed him to provide a successful and socially responsible classroom setting as a design professor at University of Wisconsin-Stout and Syracuse University, as well as several Australian universities.
He currently is a senior lecturer in design at the University of South Australia in Adelaide, where he resides with his wife, Jan. His early professional career includes working for the office of Charles and Ray Eames on projects including the IBM Museum, National Aquarium proposal, and soft pad furniture group. Then as a city planner for Los Angeles he directed a project to address blight in the city.
He has done extensive design consulting and was a staff designer at Chase Design in Skaneateles NY. as well as an independent consultant on design work relating to sustainability.
Richard studied at University of Illinois - Champaign/Urbana. His post graduate study was under Jay Doblin and Charles Owen at the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology - Chicago. He also holds an MA from California State University - Fresno.
Richard Coker, MS, MA, Sr Lecturer
University of South Australia
Adelaide, Australia 5000
f: +61 8 83020211
e: richard.coker@unisa.edu.au
Find out more about the outcomes of the City Move Icsid Interdesign 2009 in Gällivare, Sweden