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(2007)Conference PaperThis paper discusses a studio-based lighting design project developed for second year undergraduate students in a four year design degree. The project is intended to develop student understanding of the technological and manufacturing requirements of the professional design process and has been repeated each year over a three year period during which time student responses have been gathered and changes made in response to student feedback. This paper highlights the benefits of real world experiences in the early stage of design education by extending the traditions of hypothetically and conceptually rich briefs, which impacts on the student’s future design process. The lighting project is based on a client brief/s that range from architectural lighting for commercial applications to lighting systems for emergency services. The project includes lighting workshops that explore the technical and ephemeral qualities of light and provides students with hands-on experience of industrial/manufacturing processes. It also extends understanding on the role of collaboration in obtaining a professional outcome, i.e. (producing working prototypes for exhibition). Students are required to source quotations from industry thus affording a tangible outcome and an understanding of the financial implications of their design outputs. Final working prototypes are presented in a public exhibition space, designed and co-ordinated by the student group. The educational benefits of ‘real world’ experiences gained by the students and its impact on their design process is analysed. Student evaluations are discussed in response to the project brief, including their response to working with industry. In addition, how the results have enabled a refinement to the project over time. By embedding opportunities for students to engage in industrial processes outside of the university they are more likely to assume a professional focus, share knowledge and engage in each other’s experiences rather than focus on individual achievements and grades.
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(2007)Conference PaperTo develop effective design solutions for end users whose life experiences, health, mobility, and cognitive functions are significantly different to our own, we must recognize and challenge our assumptions about those users. When we set out to inspire novice designers to practice in a field widely considered as he height of ‘uncool’, we also challenge beliefs about the nature of design itself. Introducing young novice designers to ‘Elder Design, (ED) i.e. design responses to the needs of people over the age of 65, achieves both these goals. It also meets a rapidly ageing society’s requirement for designers with an understanding of this user group. This paper presents an analysis of a graduating student’s design for a chair intended for residents’ use in a residential aged care facility (RACF) in south-western Sydney). Effective design solutions in this area require a multidisciplinary approach involving an understanding of environment-behaviour relationships, the ageing process, dementia, nursing practices, operations research, and ergonomic design for user groups with highly specific (but varied) needs. In addition to the end users, ED introduces students to clients such as RACF operators, who are themselves experiencing rapid change in the types of the services they provide and the care models which inform them. In this context, effective problemsolving begins with problem identification -- for all parties. Evaluated via interview and the analysis of design outcomes, the project provides an insight into possible approaches to developing education for user-centred design solutions across many fields.
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(2004)Conference PaperStrategies used in interdisciplinary needlework-textiles in public installation-performance are outlined. My paper discusses the particulars of my Irish Linen Memorial, begun in 2001, Justine Merritt's Ribbon around the Pentagon, 1982-85, and Suzanne Lacy's The Crystal Quilt, 1987. I discuss the sculptural use of textiles in public space and ritual, such as their historically political use as banners, as well as creations symbolic of the interconnectedness of life. More currently, textiles metaphorically illustrate violence and trauma inflicted upon the body, loss of life and the rupture of the fabric of social order which war involves. Cloth can be used as a reminder of displaced persons, the migrant identity and the plea for global stability. My collaboration with choreographer-dancer, Elizabeth Cameron-Dalman, OAM, is an example of international collaboration between Australia and Canada, on the issue of Northern Ireland's sectarian violence, 1969-2000.
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(2007)Conference PaperIn the last few years especially, the notion of Graduate Attributes, and the expectation that they will be mapped through university curricula, has become increasingly standardised in the Australian university sector. Universities more and more articulate their role and purpose through a description of the qualities of their graduates (Clanchy & Ballard 199)], while these qualities are at the same time becoming increasingly generic and non-specific. The aim of this paper is to address the impact of that these approaches to curriculum development and management are likely to have in the Fine Arts and Design teritary education sectors, and on the lessons to be learnt from a recently undertaken curriculum mapping process at the College of Fine Arts UNSW.
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(2007)Conference PaperThis research takes the stance that identifying a previously unseen design example is a problem-solving activity that novice learners, particularly those who lack visual literacy skills, find extremely difficult. Learning in design history often involves presenting students, after they have been given a lecture, with appreciation activities of design examples. Such activities often do not take into account the limited capacity of working memory in that multiple examples of previously unseen material is shown and students are required to answer open-ended questions on a design’s visual characteristics without any teacher instruction until students provide an appropriate answer. According to Schnotz (2002), semantic processing is required in order for the viewer to comprehend a picture as opposed to merely perceiving it. Koroscik, Short, Stavropoulos and Fortin (1992) recommended that educators should not expect students to discover meaningful or accurate ideas about an artwork without teacher direction and input. These conclusions can also be applied to the teaching of design history. This research discusses the application of cognitive load theory, a theory usually applied to the teaching of maths and science, and theories of visual literacy to provide a theoretical underpinning for supporting techniques to improve students’ ability to recognise designers’ styles in higher education. Specifically it is suggested, that providing well-designed worked examples would be a more effective instructional method for promoting novice learning.
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(2007)Conference PaperAt the College of Fine Arts (COFA), School of Design Studies we offer a four year, integrated, Bachelor of Design, where design is the discipline, not the individual studio practices. One of the challenges in designing the First Year Design Studio Curriculum is that it is necessary to prepare students for six possible studios in years 2 and 3, and they are: Applied/Object, Environments/Spatial, Graphics/Media, Ceramics, Jewellery and Textiles. The first year also includes a number of contextual courses, Computing 1 & 2, Design History and Interactive Systems. How is it possible to incorporate into 2X14 week sessions all that is required? The first year of the Bachelor of Design, integrates theory, conceptual development and studio practice. As first year is the time to establish independent and critical ways of thinking, an integrated approach in the First Year is constructed to introduce an integrated approach. The current structure has been in place since Session 1 2005. This structure introduces students to a mix of experiences and diverse values: - A diverse range of skills - a diverse knowledge base - Global thinking patterns - Effective problem solving skills and - Learning transfer, where connections are made During the continual development of first year studios the aim has always been to develop ways to teach critical and independent thinking skills, a design process and the practical studio skills needed to achieve innovative design outcomes. Three key questions arise within an integrated design program are: 1. What does integration mean in design? 2. What does integration mean in a First Year design education? 3. How does integration translate in the upper years of a program when studio courses are specialised?
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(2007)Conference PaperThis paper reports on aspects of the author’s current ethnographic study of creativity in art and design education. The study examines the transactions between students and their teachers as students make temporal and graphic works using digital and photographic media in their final year of schooling. These works are publicly assessed in the high stakes NSW Higher School Certificate matriculation examination. Following Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of the habitus, symbolic capital and misrecognition, the study mounts a challenge to more conventional theories of creativity as, for instance, the result of genius or creative process. It argues that the micro-history and peculiarities of the cultural context as well as the linguistic exchanges between teachers and students at moments of creative origination are highly significant to concepts of creativity. It asserts that in the exchanges of symbolic capital between teachers and their students, differing levels of social tact, expressed in open secretiveness, euphemisation and denial are a necessity in efficacious exchanges. The paper provides a brief account of the design and methods. Results are retrieved from observations and interviews, augmented by visual means, using a form of semantic analysis and triangulation. An interpretation of selected results is provided. The paper concludes by questioning the extent to which creativity can be ‘taught’ and learned’ as if it were reducible to the delivery of a set of axiomatic propositions. Rather it proposes that the subtle social reasoning transacted in the context with all of its trust and riskiness is the most likely guarantee of shoring up creative outcomes. The findings have an application beyond the case and should be of interest to tertiary art and design educators.
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(2007)Conference PaperAccording to Dorst and Dijkhuis (1995) the two main paradigms governing design discourse are Simon’s rational problem solving and Schön’s theory of design as a ‘reflective conversation with the situation’. Rational problem solving has dominated design theory, and focused on design activity determined by a fixed problem space, reducing the designer to a ‘missing person’ within design research (Dorst & Reymen 2004). The aim of this paper is to locate the ‘missing’ designer within socially situated design activity. Dorst’s (2006) framework of ‘design paradoxes’ questions the dominance of the design problem in determining design activity suggesting design problems are unknowable, and determined by the designer’s re-interpretation of the accepted discourses underpinning the design situation. Dorst’s concept of design, as socially situated activity, corresponds with Schön’s ‘problem setting’ which is ‘bounded’ by the appreciative system (personal knowledge, values and beliefs) (Schön 1983). This paper identifies the correspondence between Schön’s theory and contemporary frameworks including ‘design paradoxes’. It investigates the agency of the designer as evidenced in the use of the ‘appreciative system’ in the genesis and evaluation of ‘frames’ within problem setting. This is elucidated using case study analysis of novice designers within an Australian tertiary design degree. The case reveals the structured and motivated use of the designer’s appreciative system to commence designing in the absence of ‘repertoire’ or domain knowledge (Schön 1983), and to structure the acquisition of new repertoire knowledge. These findings offer new pedagogical perspectives both in terms of design expertise, and educating domain independent, multi-disciplinary designers. Frames or similar organising principles operate in most design fields, and create a ‘principle of relevance’ for knowledge from multiple domains and disciplines (Buchanan 1992). Educating designers requires the acknowledgement and understanding of the objective function of subjective and social knowledge within design thinking, thereby locating the ‘missing’ designer within innovative design activity
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(2007)Conference PaperThis paper examines the desirability of introducing the principles of responsible design in the formative stages of design education. It also describes the activities undertaken to redesign and deliver a course to introduce and develop student understanding of the relationships that exist between their role and actions as designers, the design and manufacturing processes, social systems and the environment. The outcomes of the development and initial delivery of a heavily revised SDES 1104, Interactive Systems – Design and Responsible Management of the Environment, as delivered at University of New South Wales, College of Fine Arts, is discussed and critiqued by the coordinators. A discussion of student responses to the first delivery of the course is included.