I (Cameron Tonkinwise, Co-ordinator Undergraduate
Interdisciplinary Design Studies, University of
Technology, Sydney - ie someone who both comes
from these 'soft' layers (Doctoral Dissertation
concerning Heidegger, learning and sustainability)
and is now co-responsible for adding these layers
to the education of product, interior, fashion
and visual communication designers), am also
disturbed by the following:

"Many design educators even today make the mistake of assuming that the
entry to the world of design  knowledge is through layers that can be
classifed as humanities or soft subjects. Reality is that there is a
limited amount of time available to a design educator to first unveil the
world of Design knowlegde , then make the student absorbe it, all the
time ensuring that the student becomes a worthy professional and all this
without interfering with the student's creative abilities."

So much of this world is in danger as a result
of the feeling that we don't have the time to
turn our attention to what endangers us.

So three responses, one philosophic, one prag-
matic and one in-between:

Philosophically, perhaps one of the last tasks
remaining for the 'university in ruins' (Readings
1999) is to take and make time. In a society
dominated by productivism and convenience, uni-
versities are one of the last spaces of what
Ezio Manzini has started to call 'contemplative
time' (Manzini 2003). As all other educational
institutions are directed at survival skills,
is it not crucial for our survival that univer-
sities be the places of higher learning that
consider what lies beyond mere survival? In
other words, if there is no more time for the
'soft' out in the 'real' world, then universi-
ties must be the conservers, sustainers and
developers of all things soft - ie human.

The in-between response is that this 'time for
softness' is in fact the view of universities
that most students come to have. Whilst mostly
entering with vocational ambitions, undergrad
students do seem to spend most of their time
at university 'wasting time', with 'extra-
curricular' activities for example. Over the
course of their degrees, they become aware that
their time at university is the last 'free time'
they will ever have. As a result, one of the
most significant drivers for many returning to
do postgraduate work from years in industry is
a yearning for that sort of 'time-out'. The best
non-academic-career-focused postgrads, coursework
or research, are those who realise the value of
the time that doing a university degree gives -
the time to step back from what is hard, and
take stock of soft layers - something that is
nevertheless much harder than routinely making
use of their professional expertise.

The pragmatic response actually comes from a
paper that Gabriela Goldschmidt recently gave
at the "Expertise in Design: Design Thinking
Research Symposium 6" hosted by the Creativity
and Cognition Studios at UTS a couple of weeks
ago. Gabriela's paper concerned a study of
'desk crits' given by studio instructors at an
achitectural school. Gabriela was looking for
instances of instructors teaching students
aspects of professional design expertise -
ie heuristics about practical details. However,
nearly half of the protocol lines collected
concerned 'other' stuff, to do with form and
self-expression - soft stuff. In her conclu-
sions, Gabriela indicated that the students
were to blame for this:
        "It turned out that the students were
        very clear about what they thought was
        a good design education. Yes, they said,
        of course we need knowledge in a whole
        lot of areas (generalized as 'function')
        but that can wait. We have our entire
        careers to learn and develop expertise
        under real-world conditions, we will
        learn on the job when we work in offices.
        We are here at school to be creative:
        this is our chance to be free of 'real'
        constraints... We want our studio in-
        structors to help us attain the most
        creative feats, and not waste our time
        with tedious and boring facts."
                (Goldschmidt, 2003: 231)

Finally, to pick up a point that Keith Russell
was making yesterday about hiring staff to
teach 'soft stuff', the questions after Gabriela's
paper drew attention to the fact that when you
hire top practitioners to teach design studios,
you will invariably find that what they relish
about teaching is not the chance to rehash all
that goes on in their hard real practices, but to
once again have the time to dwell in, and nourish
others to flourish in, all things soft.

So perhaps aiming at the production of 'job-ready'
graduates from a new time-poor hard-edged design
degree program will find itself undermined by the
staff, the students, and eventually the very
founding principles of the university itself,
or at least whatever remains of them, all taking
their time.

Cameron

Goldschmidt, Gabriela (2003) "Expert Knowledge
or Creative Spark? Predicaments in Design Edu-
cation" in Cross, N. & Edmonds, E. eds
_Expertise in Design_ Conference Proceedings

Manzini, Ezio (2003) "Scenarios of Sustainable
Well-Being" Design Philosophy Papers, Issue 1

Readings, Bill (1996) _The University in Ruins_
Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press



"What is most thought-provoking in
these most thought-provoking times
is that we are still not yet
thinking"        Martin Heidegger

__________________________________________________
Dr Cameron Tonkinwise

Lecturer, Interdisciplinary Design Studies
Faculty of Design, Architecture, Building
University of Technology Sydney
Building 6, Room 620, ph (61 2) 9514 8924
[log in to unmask]
GPO Box 123 Broadway NSW 2007 Australia

CEO, Change Design Foundation
Building C, Rozelle Public School, Darling St
PO Box 369 Rozelle NSW 2039 Australia
ph (61 2) 9555 7028   [log in to unmask]
www.changedesign.org   www.edf.edu.au



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