Dear Mark, Mike, Martin, Francois, Dennis and Ken,

I have a friend who is a urologist. In his profession, the ability to do delicate surgery is imperative. He has a simple test that he gives new MDs who are are about to train with him. He gives a scalpel to these new MDs and asks them to carve a cube out of a glop of hardened plaster. As my urologist friend tells me, the new MDs may possess medical knowledge but if they do not not possess the dexterity to handle a scalpel they are of little use to me.

This story makes some obvious connections to the ‘skills’ side of design beyond manual dexterity. There are aspects of of design exploration that go beyond computer-aided this or that. But there is another aspect of the story that falls within the confine of academia. I also have a story for this.

As director of a school of design I once had to deal with the replacement of the dust-extracting system in our wood shop. The latter had several machines typical of wood shops – table saw, band saw, lathe, planers, and sanders, all of which make a great deal of dust but are equally important in making models. Our plan was to change the dust-extracting system over the summer when the students were away and have the new one in place at the beginning of the academic year. Alas, everything that could go wrong did. The factory that made the equipment went on strike, the transport company had issues with the delivery, and the delay created problems with scheduling a crew to install the new equipment. When classes began, our wood shop was not available to students. We were two months into the academic year before it was operational.

Once everything was back in order I met with the director of buildings and grounds, the person responsible for the facilities of the university. I wanted to know what had happened and how we could avoid this kind of challenge in the future. The gentleman was polite but at one point he looked at me somewhat puzzled and said, “Jacques. I don’t understand your concern. Were talking about a shop, are we not?. This isn’t like a lab, which is an important part of the university.”

I have avoided using the word shop ever since. Whether we like it or not the university has a lexicon. In that lexicon the word lab is where experimentations are undertaken; it designates a place central to the university’s mission. Shops are different. These are places where things get fixed such as the machine shop. Yet what designers do in workshops is experimentation. Perhaps our lexicon, in a small way, is hindering our place in the university. I say this because we do make reference to a computer lab in schools of design yet we continue to talk about shops of one kind or another.

In the context of design education, shops are labs. In the context of a university, however, these two word have very different meanings. So, for that matter, do the words model making and modeling. Too often, I hear the word model making used when students are making models of one thing or another. If model making is their pursuit, they have been misdirected. Schools of design do not exist to train model makers. Instead, making a model is a form of modeling much like the creation of mathematical models or models in the social sciences. In other words, modeling is an experiment that attempts to answer questions that can be best answered by making a model. It is not, however, the creation of an artifact for the sake of having an accurate representational version of the design unless such a model is necessary for publicity or other similar purpose. As I understand it, Dyson made 5,000 or more models in order to study and understand the operational system of his design. He was modeling a design, not making a model of it. As obvious as this difference is to me, I still hear students talk of model making as a skill where you can learn to make a model from scratch as opposed, I imagine, from making it from a kit. When these same students are asked what the learning outcome was from the model-making exercise, you are likely to hear such profound statements as, “I learned to finish and paint a piece of wood so that it looks like plastic” or “I now know not to use lacquer paint on plastic foam.” For these students, the benefits of the modeling exercise is totally lost. You can now add model making to my list of words I no longer use. In the context of the university it can easily position us as the makers of things, but not necessarily as the designers of things.

My university experience – 30 or more years of it – is in the US and in Canada, although I have taught in many countries. In most places that I have been I have seen design programs within a university face the same situation: an appearance that we are out of step with mainstream university practice. That said, I have also worked with university administrators who understand our position once it is explained to them. The challenge, however, is in communication. The university has its way of doing things; so does design. To be effective, we therefore need to find a point where we can reconcile our differences. As minor as it first appears to be, our lexicon is a starting point.

Best regards,

Jacques Giard PhD
Professor of Design
The Design School
Arizona State University


On 12/8/14, 3:35 AM, "Mark Evans" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:

Dear Mike, Martin, Francois, Dennis and Ken

It’s good to see so much support for workshop activity, with perspectives from a range of disciplines (industrial design, illustration, interaction design) and also on a more general level. However, I feel that industrial design, in particular, is under threat as the resources required for sophisticated model-making and prototyping are notoriously expensive (CNC milling/routing; 3D printing; expert technical staff). In fact, on a related note, this week’s Times Higher Education Supplement had an article about the Contemporary Crafts course at Falmouth University, reporting that, despite meeting its recruitment targets, it was the “most costly and space-intensive” subject and faced closure.

Discipline specific capability remains at the core of visually creative design and demand for study and graduates is as high as ever. In an era of utopian vision for design, I just hope that the bean counters don’t start to see Post-its and PowerPoint as a forward-thinking replacement for the milling machine.

Thanks

Mark






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