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Dear Don this is the kind of stuff that I really like: Dear Ken and other dear colleagues, (sorry for the long post. Maybe some Earl Grey, is now not necessary) You asked, more or less, How could a modern research Design PhD could be built based on Academic studio work? Let’s get back to what is the reason for your query on this. I “complained” about the interference of people from other areas in Design Education that proclaim the wrongness of its lack of adequacy to university. Sometimes these people twisted history to fit their narratives. Some of these people, to justify their proclamations, go even deeper in time depicting a history of design education based in rudimentary processes of transmitting knowledge. Some of these people describe design education as a byproduct: of art education, by itself ( art education) a form of: myopic distorted system of producing knowledge when compared to their field of origin. But worse than that, some people claim that they know, not only, what Design is, Design should be, but (come on!) what Design was… My post, followed Fernando’s call on Stigmergy and Design Education which, curiously enough had very interesting answers… “poor” Don, for once I agreed with you, when you opened all fields of inquiry to Design researchers even if they look far reaching. But let’s get back to what my post was about: Design Education and Mars attacks on its core. Let me clarify something about my previous post: When I say Academies, I’m referring to Art Academies or Fine Art Academies since they were from where Design Education came out. Of course that I’m calling Design Education, the system that includes a kin of Educational Institutions that Designers-to-be went/go to become Designers. This requires that, for a little while, Anglo-Saxon native speakers forget, for clarity sake, the broad meaning that both the verb design and the noun design have in their language and accept that the word started to have a social meaning referring to a profession that we could more globally call (at its origin) applied arts. That’s why I claimed the Academic strength of Academies of Art as forefathers of Design PhDs. I hope that thousands of books, conferences and articles produced by Art Academics are enough to rest my case on this. (this requires extra breathing) However Ken, you asked me a more refined question regarding the studio practice of the academies and how this tradition could be the basis of modern research based PhD studies. I could decide not to embark in this discussion since I truly believe that Art Academies produced enough work to root Design PhDs. I could decide not to embark in this discussion since I truly believe that Art Academies produced enough work to root Design PhDs. I could decide not to embark in this discussion since I truly believe that Art Academies produced enough work to root Design PhDs. (in case of any of you didn’t understand what I was saying) I could simple go back to my initial first assertion: Contemporary Design PhD studies can have their legitimacy in the Academic work of Art Academies that produced treatises, anthologies, articles and conferences on infinite subjects related with the Arts (Applied or Fine) of the respective Academies. So, if you want to find a genealogy of such doctoral studies you should not focus on how cabinet makers cursed and spat (to the ground) while carving immensely rough blocks of wood. Or why carpenters slammed poor apprentices’ heads. Instead you should focus, for instance, how some academics tried to define a theory of vision, or, based on that, devise a process of chemically fixate images, or imagine architecture for an ideal society based on Plato’s Republic… But let me dance with you a little while longer before I get into the core of how studio based design education might be the base for contemporary PhDs. (a longer break is now also wiser) As you know, the first University in Bologna was called Universitá degli Studi di Bologna and most of the early Italian Universities have this type of name that literally means: The whole of the studies in the city (Bologna, Pisa, Rome, Venice and so many others). Studi is the plural of studio and, of course, your English “studio” derives from this. University comes from that wholeness in the word Universitá. So, I would say that what you call studio practice of Art Academies corresponds to some sort of practical study done academically. This may seem like a joke or pun, but it is really what happens and happened. The problem with people that didn’t went through art&design education is that they imagine that, in art educational institution’s studios, people were like Forest Gump banging ping-pong balls to the wall. (just another break to feel the ball going forth and back.. ping-pong; ping-pong) Studio work, at least in my school, represented studying a lot. (And studying a lot should be the basis of any doctoral endeavor). The same people (in case you forgot, I’m referring to people who never went to art schools and believe that art schools are a sort of occupational institutions for forest Gumps) think that reproducing a corinthian capitel with milimetrical correction (now this needs almost a poem like division) with shadows according to Gaspard Monge’s geometry was some sort of amusing flamboyant pointless bravado. Some people think that for reproducing a corinthian capital you don’t need to study the f. capital in all its geometrical complexity, its symbology, genesis, applicability ... and history. Some people think that being able to know late gothic alabaster Nottingham sculptures (and being able to afterwards critically develop new ideas from there to develop a vacum cleaner or a logo) was simply comparable to plumbing. (starting almost another subject) The mythology about studio work in Design Education, enhanced by those who didn’t went through it, is that students would be developing their “creative” work almost alone, only sometimes being observed by autistic professors, and in the end being submitted to a Critic from where the final assessment came. On the contrary, (according to my experience) a project, developed in studio work, normally would have several phases, all discussed and assessed: 1. a research phase in which not only the history of solutions for similar problems was thoroughly exhausted, but also all the legal and technical constraints where surveyed, visual documentation, ethnographically or graphically produced or gathered and… sometimes read Heidegger’s Thinking, Dwelling, Building 2. , and, afterwards, a second phase through painstaking infinite sketches, drawings, models and prototypes, achieve the most sublime form, shape or whatever, respecting its feasibility but, alas, being able to move forward in the discipline, being able to produce original work, innovative and relevant, culturally meaningful and socially active, 3. and a final phase of detailing and defining all the elements necessary as if it would be really produced or constructed which included a multipage text called “justifying and describing memory” . Of course that nothing of this has to do with PhD contemporary studies, no, it doesn’t… Academic studio work, as you call it, happens on, probably, one of the most competitive areas in Higher Education: Art. Art. Yes, Art. Getting in to a relevant Art School, at least in Europe, requires a lot, in terms of previous work and academic record, as well. Once inside, very few will become real artists, only one or two out of hundreds will become relevant artists, only one out of thousands will gain progress and open new frontiers. But this fact do not exclude the others from being really good and consistently work for the progress of humankind through their art. Well, my initial diatribe reacts mainly to a trailer of a documentary called “Design Disruptors”. One of the leading stars starts to declare that traditionally, Design Education has been related with Art Education and it shouldn’t be anymore. For him, Art has to do with creating problems and design about solving problems, so they should be separated. There are several issues with this claim. First, the idea about problems with no solution had an author: Giulio Carlo Argan. It would have been nice to quote him. Second, since Design solves problems shouldn’t it be wiser to be near to the place where problems are generated? Third, again, the leading star never went to an art or design school. He had a degree in engineering and a PhD in Japan allegedly on Design. Nevertheless he applied and was chosen to be president of one of the most prestigious Art&Design Schools in the US… After six years, he quitted after a vote of disapproval by more than 80% of his colleagues. Also in the trailer, he claims that art schools are far from business. This, like other myths about art schools, is irrelevant since objects of art have the greater disproportion between cost and price. In fact, one work of art can multiply by ten its prize making rich several people in the process. (Now I’m getting to a conclusion) However, the highest stupidity amongst those who claim that design should live separated from art has to do with the discipline of Art History, or History of Art. History of art gives a perspective of how human societies produced objects of excellence, of human excellence, I must say. A education in Art History is an education not only on the variations of aesthetical perception but also on applied technical innovation. But more than this, it gives a perspective on the quest of humans for their indisputable humanity. This has not only to do with masterpieces, but also with notions like “style” overwhelmingly vertical in all human object productions, rich or poor, in some periods of Time. I’m sure that, during the XXth century we all have witnessed how human problems, engineered or submitted to business, have driven humanity. Extracting Design from art would be another steady step towards a soulless ignorant bright future. Best, Eduardo . Eduardo Corte-Real PhD Arch. Associate Professor Professor Associado com Agregação [log in to unmask] Eduardo Corte-Real PhD Arch. Associate Professor Professor Associado com Agregação [log in to unmask] ----------------------------------------------------------------- PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design -----------------------------------------------------------------