Design Education

Learning, Teaching and Researching Through Design

Philippa Lyon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317152552
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Teaching Arts & Humanities

Embracing the richness, complexity and possibilities of learning and teaching in design, Design Education takes the vantage point of the 'outsider' and explores what makes design so compulsively fascinating for those who teach and study it. Through more than 40 projects, from design students' use of archives and museum collections to the potential of specific technologies to enhance teaching and learning, from architecture and 3D design to fashion, Philippa Lyon explores aspects of learning and teaching in higher education design subjects. Taking an ethnographic approach and using data from interviews, discussions and observations, the book also examines issues such as the experience of design teacher-practitioners entering the world of learning and teaching research for the first time. Design Education encapsulates and analyzes the research findings facilitated by the UK-based Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning Through Design. It delves into many pedagogical terms and assumptions and guides the reader through them, examining the way relevant key concepts in design are articulated. It will be useful to teachers and students of design subjects, learning and interpretation staff in museums, pedagogical researchers, other centres for excellence in teaching and learning (particularly those which are art and design-related), independent design practitioners and managers of art and design provision in the public and private sector.

1

Design Education Contexts and Designer Identities

A designer is:

An emerging synthesis of artist, inventor, mechanic, objective economist and evolutionary strategist.

(Fuller 1969: 176)

Introduction

Coming to the world of design higher education as a non-specialist, there is both familiarity and mystification to contend with. A sense that design is something we all ‘know a bit about’ hangs slightly dubiously in the air. Many of us speak confidently about design in some part of our lives, so it can’t be that difficult to understand, can it? We might feel that we have engaged with design on some level through compulsory education, through design-based television or magazines. In popular usage, it has become associated strongly with large-scale architecture projects, interior design and fashion. Read the description of a designer by R. Buckminster Fuller quoted above, however, go to a design exhibition or a university design assessment show and the sense of familiarity, of possessing a comfortable understanding of the boundaries and purposes of design, might just be unsettled.

The range of uses of the term ‘design’ is striking. It is a flexible and malleable word that has a range of meanings, applications and resonances. It features widely in mass media and popular culture. There are 11 definitions offered in the Collins English Dictionary and Thesaurus (2000), ranging from the functional, ‘to work out the structure or form of (something) as by making a sketch or plans’; the conceptual, ‘to invent’; and the positively sinister: ‘a plot, often to gain possession of (something) by illegitimate means’. Design also turns up in conversational sayings and expressions: consider for example the phrase ‘more by accident than design’ where ‘design’ is used broadly to indicate intention rather than chance occurrence.

If you study, practise or teach art and design, you will have a sense of the shape and boundaries of your discipline, whether this is instinctive or explicit. It is likely to be part of your daily life. What it means to refer to design as a discipline will be explored a little further in this chapter, as will the ways in which designers form a sense of identity. From a non-specialist’s point of view, however, trying to capture a sense of what design really is can seem both important and frustrating. Important, because art and design are terms used with such confidence in the world around us: they have huge cultural weight and there can be, quite naturally, a wish to understand exactly what each word refers to. Frustrating, because the more you try to understand it, the more design seems to shift, change shape and gradually dissolve before your eyes.

It is common to come across the phrase ‘art and design’, as though the two disciplines were somehow fused. This is embedded within the organizational structure of many institutions of higher education, where the art and design disciplines are grouped together in the names of departments or faculties. Indeed, it is so familiar as to pass unnoticed most of the time: it is as though they are not just natural, but inevitable partners. The designer and educator Norman Potter referred to this use of the phrase ‘art and design’ as a ‘well-known but uneasy juxtaposition’ (Potter 1980: 19). It would be better, Potter goes on to suggest, if fine art were grouped instead with music, literature, poetry and film. These are all activities that ‘Interpret, primarily, the psychological and sensuous and spiritual understanding of man’ (Potter 1980: 19). This approach would leave space to start defining what is specifically design: ‘It would then be easier to distinguish those activities which must first satisfy his [man’s] physical and accessory needs’ (Potter 1980: 19).Yet almost immediately this attempt to clarify matters runs into trouble. Art as ‘psychological and sensual’? Design as satisfying ‘physical and accessory needs’? You might be thinking that this seems a rather reasonable rule of thumb definition. You might, on the other hand, be looking at this with alarm and a counter-argument on your lips. Potter himself, having set up this possible definition, quickly goes on to acknowledge that it is very difficult to justify and helps us understand design only in the most limited of ways.

As mentioned in the introductory chapter, design for the purposes of this book refers to the subject categories of architecture, graphic design, fashion and textiles design, history of design and three-dimensional design. When we talk about ‘design’, however, there are two different grammatical forms of the word that we might be using: ‘The word “design”, unlike “art”, has a double meaning. Both a verb and a noun, it is not just a feature of our surroundings, it is also the creative process that makes them possible.’ (Sparke 2009: 10). There is not just design as objects, products and services, there is design as the process that leads to these things. Both forms of the word have been discussed in a range of educational books about design, examples of which are briefly discussed later in this chapter. Design publications and organizations, from academic journals to popular magazines, large design companies and national bodies such as the Design Council use a range of interpretations of design. In some cases this is not made explicit but is left to the individual reader or user to interpret. Where it is openly described or discussed, the problem of articulating what comprises design is apparent. In this quotation from Peter Swann’s occasional report, The Economic Rationale for a National Design Policy, six ‘essential characteristics of design as described by different commentators’ are described as follows:

These are the multi-faceted characteristics of design; design as a link from creativity to innovation; design as a source of competitive distinction; design as an approach to planning and problem-solving; design as a means of creating order out of chaos; and design as an approach to systems thinking.

(Swann 2010: i)

One of the interesting aspects of this list is the extent to which the characteristics are expressed in general terms and might, therefore, be interpreted in diverse ways. Another is that some of the characteristics, for example, ‘creating order out of chaos’, could be applied to a great many human activities and seem equally apt. The quest to determine what, in particular, constitutes design might lie in the combination of these characteristics, or the precise way in which they are understood.

This chapter, then, does not set out to ‘corner’ design. It doesn’t attempt to express in abstract terms exactly what design is. To do this would risk getting caught up in what Richard Sennett terms a ‘definitional worry’ (2009: 65); a chasing after stable definitions where this is neither possible nor desirable. There is a need to situate the research in this book within a framework, however. Following the account of the research story given in the introductory chapter, readers will be aware that I navigated my way around design education research from the position of relative outsider. I needed to develop a working understanding of concepts such as design, design education and designer whilst being aware that they were not used in the same way by all researchers or educators. The different subject areas and sectors involved drew on diverse traditions. Some of the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning through Design (CETLD) researchers were, like me, new or recent arrivals in the field of design education. I needed to develop at least a rough map of the design education territory in which to locate my analysis, one that took into account the multi-partner, collaborative nature of the CETLD research. In the first section of this chapter, I have presented some impressionistic accounts of this territory, highlighting a few illustrative issues. This section seeds a number of questions about how far design education is experienced in terms of physical space, institutional cultures and language. Some of these issues are discussed further in other chapters of the book.

The issues of subject shape and professional identity emerged many times in CETLD researcher interviews and thus became clear themes in their own right. This suggested a need to dedicate at least a brief discussion to questions of identity: the second section of this chapter focuses on this. Touching on theories about the construction of academic and professional identity through narrative, this section highlights the significance of the way individuals explain and describe themselves. Having accepted the need for these two contextual sections, however, there still seemed to be a significant absence. Design education appears to be built on a notion of ‘the designer’ who is ultimately to emerge: the creative professional practitioner. This is the key result or objective of the design educational process. For this reason, the third and longest section of this chapter broadens out the issue of identity to consider what or who this abstract ‘designer’ figure is. It looks at how social and cultural ideas about the designer’s role, function and significance are affected by, but also influence, design education.

Each of the following sections is intended both to offer some background for the subsequent chapters in this book and to generate thought and reflection.

Arenas of Design Education: Space, Place and Language

There are many environments where we might learn about design and many opportunities through which we might experience design. We might take particular notice of the layout of a book or magazine. We might view and dwell on designed objects in our own domestic space, in high street retail stores, in stately homes or in car boot sales. We might be intrigued enough to find out about the processes through which the objects were made or be inspired by them in our own making. So are these places arenas of design education? Or is this the case only if educational intent is there?

Imagine a (fictional) scene in a charity shop. A browsing customer spots a brooch that strikes them as intensely beautiful. A volunteer in the shop has been a jeweller and explains that the brooch is paste, its shape and fitting typical of the late 1950s. It has little monetary value, but is a weight and size particularly effective for the style of coat collar popular at the time. They happen to know that this was based on an original piece by a particular jeweller, who designed the first of this type with precious stones. The browser, fascinated, buys the brooch. At home they consider its wearability, the way it slumps on its pin fastening on when worn on thin fabric but sits comfortably on thick. They start to look more carefully at the way modern brooches are made and wonder about alternative materials and fixings. Eventually they enrol on a three-dimensional design course, planning to specialize in jewellery. From unanticipated moments of inspiration, generally unrecorded and fleeting, learning journeys can begin, or be reignited.

Any educational impact from a scenario such as this emerges as much from the individual’s interests, the chance encounter and their response to it as from the presence of explicit instruction, guidance or learning goal. So does an encounter like this, a moment of inspiration, perhaps, have any connection with the modes, places and locations of design education? Isn’t this a world away from, for example, the graphic design and furniture students occupied in the university studio or workshop; the fashion design students visiting an exhibition of hats at the suggestion of their tutor? Yet the thirst for creative and intellectual knowledge and the significance of the enquiring spirit is very much at the heart of design education, in any setting, for both learners and teachers. Informal and accidental moments of discovery and learning continuously happen within, at the edge of or outside the formal borders of the institution. Detailed specialist work on learning space was carried out by the CETLD and is accessible in research reports, an electronic resource and a book, listed in the Bibliography. Discussions of education as not easily containable within institutional walls and frameworks, whether literal or metaphorical, will emerge again later in this book too.

Higher education, museums and professional organizations each have a place in providing or contributing to design education. Each of these sectors has an established educational role and although their precise aims, philosophies and approaches to education might diverge, we can locate design educational activities quite clearly in each of them. The respective sectors have their resources constraints, policy frameworks, quality mechanisms and educational approaches. They also have cultural values and habits that influence, for example, the use of space, language and behavioural expectations. In such complex settings, the way in which the individual student, visitor, teacher or practitioner experiences and perceives design education is, perhaps unsurprisingly, difficult to capture. In the following brief and impressionistic moments taken from research interviews, however, some perspectives are offered.

INTERVIEW SCENARIO 1

‘They had very little time and the day was only very short, so we only finished one part of the structure. When the dark came we were projecting the images from the other side of the park.’ (Transcript X). On a wintry London street, architecture students struggled to construct a piece of public street furniture for their CETLD project. The researcher, painting this image in her interview, described how in addition to their creative and technical planning, the students had found out about permissions for carrying out work in public spaces, appreciated and calculated the environmental impact of their work and, of course, coped with functioning in the exposed setting with passers-by, low temperatures and little daylight available. Finding the task more complex than anticipated and conditions deteriorating, the students had adapted. Even if the planned structure couldn’t be completed, they could still make sure they recorded, absorbed and reflected on their experience of the process.

INTERVIEW SCENARIO 2

Sitting in the bright, first-floor restaurant of the imposing 66 Portland Place, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) building, a researcher described a CETLD project that had resulted in educational video case studies. Discussing how these resources would be promoted and used, the researcher commented that they needed to be a bit ‘separate/independent’ from RIBA (Transcript D). The videos were taken to a range of institutions as part of a kind of ‘road-show’.

INTERVIEW SCENARIO 3

In a small, windowless meeting room in the Victoria and Albert Museum, one researcher described the experience of developing a framework for collaborative higher education and museum research projects. There were ‘very different institutional cultures’. What was meant by the words ‘education’ and ‘research’ in each sector was at odds; expectations of individuals involved in education and research activities were quite different. Finding common ground and understanding had been a project in its own right.

INTERVIEW SCENARIO 4

A researcher working in a museum setting narrated the experience of running a research project. Whilst often difficult and sometimes frustrating it felt, she said, like a ‘considerable luxury’. For this researcher one of the personal points of comparison was years of experience in an extremely pressurized architectural practice. To have funded time for research and to be invited to reflect on this in interview was a novelty; it felt almost indulgent.

In the first scenario, the selection of particular type of outdoor public space for a university student project brought with it a range of new learning demands and experiences. The use of off-campus space is of course not unique: many university courses offer educational field trips, placements and excursions. Through the act of reflecting on the project in interview, however, the researcher made the intense personal and educational impact of space and place explicit.

In the second scenario, the researcher described how RIBA consciously considered the power dynamic created by their formal educational monitoring role. RIBA, like many other professional member associations, has a remit to help develop the overall quality of the profession. As part of this it aims to keep its:

long-standing involvement in promoting high quality and innovative architectural education throughout the world. Through validation, the RIBA identifies courses and examinations which achieve the standards necessary to prepare students for the professional practice of architecture.

(http://www.architecture.com/EducationAndCareers/Validation/UKvalidation.aspx)

When universities create new courses or update existing ones, RIBA representatives are involved in checking that these courses will provide students with professional architectural competency. RIBA’s educational role is not purely about conformity with standards, however. It is also involved in training and development for qualified architects, maintains a library and archives and collaborates with the V&A in educational initiatives. The CETLD researcher’s comment about keeping RIBA a little ‘separate’ suggested a conscious decision to offer the resource as optional, a useful source, rather than an imposition. The use of a touring model of distributing the videos was a way of putting some space between these resources and the authority of the professional association.

In the third example, the process of designing and planning collaborative projects between museum and university exposed some of the core beliefs and values held by each. This in turn revealed fundamental differences in the understanding of terms such as ‘research’ and ‘education’. With the prospect of formal collaboration over educational research in view, these underlying tensions came to the surface and the differences were acknowledged. In this case, the fact that both institutions used the same terminology initially disguised the underlying differences. This illustrated the extent to which the choice and use of language is integral to the structure and culture of an institution and to the way in which education is conceptualized.

In the fourth scenario, the researcher’s use of language portrayed yet another take on research. Here the reference to experiences of private sector practice implicitly questioned the value of educational research (by describing it as a ‘luxury’). Within the higher education context, research is often discussed in terms of funding, status, academic development of the individual and the institution. It is often experienced as a drive and a pressure, a perception discussed in the next chapter. Here, however, from a different perspective research was une...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Design Education Contexts and Designer Identities
• Chapter 2 Richness and Alienation: The Experiences of Researchers in Design Education
• Chapter 3 Learning Through Doing
• Chapter 4 Freedom, Risk and Constraint: Creative Design Learning
• Chapter 5 On Not Being Able to Write: The Visual and Verbal
• Chapter 6 To Infinity and Beyond: Expectations and Experiences of Technology
• Conclusion
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index