Hi Mike
We've had some success at breaking down silos here at Edith Cowan University. One example is the approach taken in the third year project unit. Both Environmental/ Spatial and Graphic Design have final semester project units that have dealt with a number of conventional design problems within discipline areas. This year we combined both classes, into one very large group, and gave them the task of finding a design problem within the local municipal area (City of Vincent) Representatives from Vincent came along and spoke to the group describing some of the social, spatial and communication issues that they dealt with. Students formed groups and made field trips, observing, photographing and sketching, before deciding on a problem. This problem finding approach lead to some significant initiatives, so good in fact that the representatives who attended the presentation want to show the full council and executive.
What was interesting is that the students did not put themselves in silos, many of the groups had a mix of 2D and 3D students. If the approach had to be categorised I'd say that most of the work related to service design.
I also teach a unit called Collaborative Design that sets out to teach students how to work with others. Students come from many discipline areas and their main project is 'Improving The First Year Experience' Students are free to interpret this in a number of ways. Again their own discipline area does not seem to have much of an effect on what they produce.
Regards
Alun
Alun Price
Edith Cowan University
Western Australia
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike McAuley" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thursday, 15 November, 2012 5:25:06 AM GMT +08:00 Beijing / Chongqing / Hong Kong / Urumqi
Subject: Epistemological bailiwicks replacing traditional disciplines
We are currently looking at updating the structure of our BDes programme and are considering whether this is an opportunity to move away from traditional discipline silos. One such consideration is to base our programme on an epistemological basis, identifying, if possible, different types of knowledge, or possibly even basing it on human behaviour. Instead of having a traditional structure where at the top are disciplines, i.e. Communication Design, Industrial Design, Fashion Design etc, we could consider an epistemological, bailiwick structure. The bailiwicks could be knowledge based. For example a bailiwick titled 'modality', could cover areas of design relevant to how we make personal meaning and how we experience the world. This could relate to areas such as observational drawing, colour theory, perception, cognition and so forth. A bailiwick (or mode) titled 'strategy' could relate to how we make meaning for others and might be recognised within traditional discipline areas such as graphics, advertising, etc. However, no discipline would have ownership of these knowledge bailiwcks. And that would be one of the key differences. The key purpose to this is to create fluidity between specialisms, break down the bastions of traditional knowledge and to see a greater connectedness between design disciplines. The disciplines themselves can still exist, as they become the means by which knowledge is created; but they become no longer self contained knowledge structures.
I would welcome my international colleagues insights, ideas, opinions, examples of future focused design education structures.
Regards
Mike
Dr. MIKE MCAULEY
SENIOR LECTURER, SUBJECT DIRECTOR,
ILLUSTRATION
Institute of Communication Design
College of Creative Arts
Massey University
Museum Building
Buckle Street
Wellington
http://creative.massey.ac.nz<http://creative.massey.ac.nz/>
________________________________
(04) 801 5799 ext 62461
(04 027 357 8799
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