"Design as Layers" Model for Design Education
Sanjoy Mazumdar

Introduction and background
         Whenever the possibility of designing and building a new program
or school arises the possibility is created for reflecting on the state of
the art of the field, its historical development, how the field has been
performing, how it is likely to be in the future, and how should the new
school be structured and set up so that it can be viable and effective for
many years to come. When the possibility arose of planning a new school of
design at UCI, I thought that it was just such an opportunity.  In looking
into the future in the proverbial crystal ball, there seemed to me to be
several scenarios one could address.  However, it is important for me to
note at the outset that my view of the crystal ball was affected by my lack
of 20/20 vision, the colored lens I was wearing (that we are all wearing
most of the time), and healthy doses of skepticism by those committee
members who were much more pragmatically driven than dreamers like me, and
who constantly toned the discussions with what was feasible.  For this I am
grateful to them. Second, these thoughts are not all mine, though I may
have proposed many of them, but in the meetings we borrowed from each other
without giving credit, and sometimes misattributed ideas of one person to
another.  So, even though I am writing about these, these ideas are likely
not all mine.  I thank the committee for enabling discussion on these and
other issues.  I thought that these ideas were important, and tried to
ensure that they were not lost in the shuffle and rush.

         How should design be viewed and taught?  What kinds of
considerations should be important?  Across all the areas proposed,
undergraduate and graduate, the following ideas were felt to be essential
to form a base.

Design and Users
         It was important to emphasize at the very early stages that
designs had one or more users (for want of a better term  many do not like
this term because of its functionalist/instrumentalist bias) and that the
relationship between the design and the user was of critical
importance.  Most often, the user would be a human.  For that reason, it
was critical to have courses that would teach about people.  Thus,
ethnography for designers, survey techniques, and humanistic inquiry were
crucial.  But, there are many kinds of humans.  It was vital to learn about
different kinds of people and not just those of the society of the
designer.  Humans are not the only users.  Frequently, the users could be
other species (eg, in zoos).  It was also imperative to help design
students understand that their designs may impact people or other species
by affecting their habitat, and essential supplies, such as food, water,
and clean air.

Design and Culture: Culturally appropriate and sensitive design
         Respect for the ways people view, understand, and use products,
different though they may be from one's own views, can be made an important
consideration.  Learning about cultures and their views of designed
products can be aided through the teaching of ethnography and properly
designed courses.  Effects of inappropriate design can be illustrated so
that student designers become aware that their work affects people in many
and deep ways.

Design and Society
         Who are the designs for?  Who are they privileging or
excluding?  When and how do designers become pawns of those in power?  How
can designers enable people to achieve their potential?  When and how do
designers end up hurting people and how can we guard against that?  What is
the role of designers in society?  When can design lead social thinking and
social change?  What has been the history of design?  What constrains it as
field or profession?  How should the future be viewed, and what changes made?

Design for all: Universal Design
         This is a focus on making designs accessible and usable by all,
and pays particular attention to special or unusual needs.  Users may have
varying capacities and universal design takes into consideration these
factors.  Though attention is called to this feature by efforts to make
buildings accessible, the idea is applicable to a variety of products.  How
can universal design considerations become

Design and Spirit
         Designs have the capacity to move the spirit, to excite or calm
people.  The Taj Mahal has a way of affecting people at a spiritual and
sensual level.  The Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad design by Charles Correa
make may feel calm, and pensive.  I suppose we could refer to these (I
hesitate here) to call them mood altering designs.

         Design and excitement
         Designs have the capacity to excite people, and enable special
connections.  Too often, when design is done on the basis of a checklist,
the excitement component is overlooked.  Thematic design can focus on some
special component for excitement.  There are many examples of designs that
excite us.

         Design and the senses
         Designers need to be trained so that they can address and appeal
to any and all the senses, as they need.  The visual component is perhaps
most commonly emphasized, is important.  Training in visual arts therefore
becomes important.  But, tactile, aural/acoustic, olfactory, and taste
components cannot be ignored.  In addition to these, there is the aspect of
overall "feel" or sense that also needs to be considered.

Design and Environment
         Designers can affect the environment by the products they design
and the manufacturing processes they select.  Consciousness of the costs,
tangible or intangible, can be found out and factored in.  Sustainable and
minimally invasive design criteria can be learned.  Respect for the
environment can be factored into designs.

Design and Professional Ethics and Responsibility
         Designers need to have training in and a basic sense of
ethics.  Reflexivity may be hard to teach, but it is certainly worth
trying.  Should designers be responsible to the corporate sector, the
government, society, or to specific groups in society (in an advocacy
arrangement)?  In architectural design, a distinction is made between the
paying client (the person who hires the designer) and the user (who uses
the product the designers produces, but may lack a say in how it is
designed)?  Also, there is what is called a Programming stage during which
information about the project is collected.  It is at this stage that
requirements can be put forth.  After the design is done (and the client
wants to go ahead with it) the building is constructed.  Although often
overlooked, there is a another stage called Post Occupancy Evaluation or
POE.  At this time the building is evaluated, for which users views are
collected.  There are problems with all of these steps.  But the question
of importance here is: Should design be evaluated, when, and by whom?  Art
and architecture critics provide one kind of critique, but users provide
another.  These questions need to be researched more, but they are ripe for
consideration for ethics and responsibility courses.

Design Studio
         Design teaching can occur using a variety of pedagogical styles:
lectures, seminars, research, studio, practica, etc.  The studio experience
is an important pedagogical mode not explicitly mentioned above, but
necessarily part of the curriculum.  This is one place synthesis of
knowledge and ideas, as well as imagination and creativity get center staged.

Conclusion
         I have not specifically addressed questions of and science and/or
art or research and/or practice.   It is not useful or productive to
polarize the world in that way, in my opinion.  I define research as the
asking of pointed questions and seeking to ensure that the answers obtained
are correct and reliable.  Methods are forums for discussing how the
answers obtained are verified to be correct and reliable.  For many
instances, existing methods can be used without modification.  But for many
questions, creativity is necessary to discover or invent new methods or
modify existing and known ones.  Science is not devoid of creativity, nor
is art and design devoid of science and deep knowledge of the subject
matter.  On the second matter, there has been a privileging in academic
circles for basic research.  In this scheme, pragmatic or applied research
and application research get lower or no status.  Much of design research
would be seen as pragmatic research.  This distinction is also artificial,
arbitrary, and not productive.  Many questions of basic research come from
the world of practice, and even application research has contributed basic
knowledge.  Many fields that were considered application fields when they
began are now seen as generating questions of basic research (eg.
engineering, medicine, management).  Views of research and what constitutes
basic or applied or application research, being socially constructed, change.

         All of the features pointed to above can be subjects of
research.  In fact, focused research on many of these components is
lacking.  Disciplinary research addresses some of these features, and is
able to teach a lot, but in many instances falls short for designers whose
focus and needs for information may be different.  The faculty and students
in the school of design can engage in research on issues of direct interest
to designers and the design professions.  Research, scholarly, and creative
activities thus become mainstays of design education.  It is certainly
possible to think of design as imparting a set of skills which graduates
use to design.  A larger picture however, can make the professions of
design that much more capable of facing issues, finding solutions, and not
have to wait for other disciplines to provide the impetus or the research.

         At the same time, in setting up design education with this
emphasis on research and scholarly activities it is important to not only
not quell creativity and intuition, but to encourage them.  One can set up
the courses, but in the end it is the culture of the school and the
emphasis members of the school put on each of these components in the
classroom that will make the difference.  For this reason, hiring decisions
are extremely important.  Practitioners can provide useful perspectives and
real life projects.  These are often successful in exciting the students to
the subject.  Yet, the purpose of the school is not providing employees for
one or a set of companies at one point of time, but to consider societal
needs over the long run.

         I have not specifically addressed issues of art (visual or other)
and technology.  Both are important in design.  I am not sure I want to
privilege one over the other.

         The components of design described above though analytically
teased apart and presented as layers, need to be connected back again.  Too
often one or more components get neglected.  This is where the "design as
layers" or the "lasagna model of design" as a metaphor can become useful
for application in design projects.  Eventually, the layers will not remain
distinct but start to seep into one another and hopefully become a part of
the subconscious of the designer.