On 19/02/2007, at 6:04 AM, Swanson, Gunnar wrote:
> That doesn't have to lead to the conclusion that the best route to
> critical thinking is to take a substantial portion of every degree
> program and devote it to a specific sort of major research project.
The undergraduate Industrial Design Program at RMIT is substantially
research orientated ( let alone our masters program) - so I am not
the right person to speak.
> So is a large piece of research writing being suggested as a big
> portion of a design practice degree because it is the best way to
> promote advancement in practice, because we don't really approve of
> practice as worthy of an educational focus, or because we have
> classified research as fitting the old Martha Stewart phrase "a
> Good Thing," therefore to be shoehorned into whatever we control?
In 1996 when I travelled through Turkey and England, change was in
the air. It seemed all design academics in these two countries had
been told by their respective establishments that they had to get
PhD's. I had been fighting for two years against PhD as a requirement
for design academics in India. I fought for two more years and then
gave in. Four years ago I submitted my thesis, in the social science
format, and it was 80,000 words.
At that time I was teaching in a course work master's MDes program.
And the 4th sem/ last project submission was called a thesis. And
they were pretty thin examples of a thesis - more like project
reports. And it was similar to what the MTech chaps were submitting.
Now at RMIT we dont have a coursework masters - so I should stop. But
to go on - there is a masters by research; which can be done by
project or by thesis. Either way the final outcome is called a DVR
(durable visual record) or an exegesis. And I have seen some
exegesis' that are about 6000 words accompanied by a video, the
object and an exhibition. Some are larger. There is no fixed norm.
But there is a language that people seem to use to negotiate the
quantitative requirement of the masters submissions. They will say -
'this is not a PhD'.
Now Gunnar, your criticism is valid. We here are in an architecture
dominated school - and the architects have a thesis/ major project.
So we do have a major project and the end result of one category of
students is a written thesis. Many of these students work on research
projects of staff. This can be seen as a contamination. But is also
seen as the nature of a contemporary university - and what it has
done to the 'education of the designer'.
I think practice orientation is valid - but that there are many
different kinds of practice. I have for years practiced design in the
'design for need' area and this has made me shy away from working for
the 'corporate' - but then many of us in India and other developing
countries did this. When we came into university we just got bolder
and did similar community orientated projects - but with research
grants. And I have had students working with me on these projects.
Since 05 I have been working on design for diabetes and this is my
practice. But the university sees it as research. And my colleagues
in design consultancies what do they think? Not sure .. they probably
think it is research. And students who worked with me (in 05) wrote a
bit. And they were first year students.
In short the industrial design degree here at RMIT offers many
pathways and only one of these lead to 'product design' in the
servicing the industry client kind of way. But then Graphic Design
may be different and the ideologies that we navigate in Industrial
design (between elitism and community action)may be local.
Dr. Soumitri Varadarajan
Associate Professor
Industrial Design Program
School of Architecture and Design
RMIT University
Web: http://users.tce.rmit.edu.au/Soumitri.Varadarajan/index.htm
"Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them"
- Agatha Christie (1890 - 1976)
|