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PHD-DESIGN  March 2008

PHD-DESIGN March 2008

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Subject:

Gavin Melles's quick course

From:

Ranulph Glanville <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Ranulph Glanville <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Sat, 1 Mar 2008 11:17:53 +0000

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

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text/plain (107 lines)

May I request that when subjects change, we change subject headers.  
Gavin Melles' recent post under "Your turn - Masters/PhD programs and  
Survey" is actually a request for a crash course. We had a complete  
change of subject only last week, without the subject header  
changing. I know how it happens (I do this too), but it's terribly  
misleading.

As to Gavin's post:

I agree with Chris. I fear your wish shows a terrible  
misunderstanding of design that is typical of those who come in from  
outside to examine the subject and tell us what to do.

I suppose my position is fairly familiar, since I have rehearsed it  
more than once on this list.

Here's a very terse version, which, in going for brevity, may appear  
a little harsher than I mean it to.

Design is an activity, a way of acting. You can't just do a crash  
course in it, and studying it as a flied is not doing it.

What I fear Gavin wants to do is to treat design as a subject that  
provides material for other approaches. This is a major part of the  
history of design research, and is why the research produced is of so  
little help to designers in actually designing.

I suggest that we should all recognise that design is a worthwhile  
activity (show it some respect) and be willing to learn through  
doing, rather than learn about through studying.

Once we dare (I use the term advisedly: I have worked with many who  
were not designers, but were interested and had, in the end, to dare)  
to let go enough to start learning to do designing, we may be  
surprised. I maintain that design is the basic human cognitive  
activity, so we find it comes naturally. Actually, I believe it's the  
basic human activity, but perhaps that's another matter.

So sign on and get involved: don't stand outside hoping for a quick fix!

(I do recognise that there is value in bringing in outside views. But  
that's scarcely to  the point, here.)

Ranulph




On 1 Mar 2008, at 10:29, Chris Rust wrote:

> Gavin Melles wrote:
>> BUT I'd like to get myself (in as short a time and as cost  
>> effectively as possible) a postgrad dip or masters in design  
>> without a heavy residency requirement
> I have my doubts about this project.
>
> I have once supervised a part-time Masters student in Design who  
> was studying mainly in another country and did not have a classic  
> art and design background.
>
> However he brought a number of assets with him. He was a very  
> highly qualified engineer leading the design and development of  
> complex special-purpose ships so he had a great deal of skill and  
> insight in 3-dimensional design, albeit with a different  
> perspective from our "Art School" designers. He also had a loit of  
> facility with the 3-D CAD tools that he used in most of his project  
> work for us.
>
> He also accepted that he had to undertake his own programme of  
> visualisation skills learning since we didn't have anything to  
> offer somebody in his situation, he enrolled in a Open College of  
> the Arts distance drawing course. However this is a high risk  
> strategy because the whole point of craft skills learning is that  
> it is a social activity, our student got away with it because he  
> had a natural aptitude for visual thinking and a very keen ability  
> to observe.
>
> He was very successful in his MA, producing as his final project an  
> imaginative and very well-considered design for a footbridge in  
> response to an architectural design competition. However I don't  
> think we taught him very much about designing, we just helped him  
> focus his formidable practical and intellectual talents in a  
> slightly different direction. The most important thing was that he  
> didn't need the qualification (already had a PhD and a top job), he  
> just wanted to engage with something new and stimulating - a  
> perfect scholar.
>
> My suggestion to Gavin is that he looks around his immediate  
> environment and asks what he can take advantage of to advance his  
> thinking, we generally use undergraduate project modules to give  
> discipline-switching postgraduates a chance to develop disciplinary  
> experience and skills and I assume that you can do that for free in  
> your home university. That may not feel like progress if you are  
> focused on a postgrad qualification but if you want to understand  
> your students and their experience it will be a very good start.
>
> best wishes from Sheffield
> Chris
>
> *********************
> Professor Chris Rust
> Head of Art and Design Research Centre
> Sheffield Hallam University, S11 8UZ, UK
> +44 114 225 2706
> [log in to unmask]
> www.chrisrust.net

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