I will start my musings by thanking Ken for his brilliant idea in
convening this online conference, and for his over generous
introduction of me. In making my response to this debate I have
several thoughts. One of them is that the discussion has gone a bit
quiet recently, so I will try to be a little contentious about some
weaknesses of the report as I see them, and seek some responses perhaps
from folks who have not yet participated in this debate.
First, I have been intrigued by the general quality of the debate here.
Given that this kind of online conference is experimental, most
contributors have taken this debate seriously and have posted well
considered responses to the many issues that have been raised. I thank
them all. It gives me increasing hope that there are such vehicles for
international discussion of issues that concern us all. We have much
to learn from each other.
Second, though I read the UCI report at the time it was originally made
public, in reading it again I was struck both by the considerable work
that underpins the proposals and the boldness of the vision. I found
myself in agreement with most of the report.
Third, it made me refer to some other debates that have occurred in
recent years. For example, the prescient report 'Sitting with Nellie'
(Swann 1989), and of course Cal's later organisation of the Reinventing
Design Education conference (Swann and Young 2000). Well done Cal!
Fourth, I realised that the UCI report is exceedingly clear in the case
that it makes for the kinds of activities it judges to be 'design' but
is conspicuously silent about all the other kinds of design that it
excludes.
I will touch on some of these points that particularly interest me in a
little more detail.
There was some early discussion about whether the team that made the
report, and their consultants, were in any way 'qualified' to discuss
design if they had not come through a traditional design education
themselves. Of course I would agree that anyone can discuss design,
indeed we designers have much to learn from other disciplines. For
example, the very eloquent posts from both Richard Taylor and Michael
Clark are testimony to others being able to articulate design values
and give a clear vision of the need for change unfettered by
traditional design thinking. But we should be careful that visionaries
do have a good grasp of the issues in mainstream design programmes, and
that the baby is not thrown out with the bath water when they do not.
Perhaps some insight is provided into the detailed understanding of the
authors. Sketching was mentioned, and defended by some commentators as
intrinsic to design thinking and the communication of design thinking
to others. Another slip that I noticed was the interchangeability of
the terms 'universal' design and 'inclusive' design as though they mean
the same thing. They do not.
On a related theme, occasionally people from non design backgrounds
describe themselves as designers. They base this upon having been
involved in some way in the creation of an artefact or service. They
may be designers in some limited sense, but are certainly not designers
in any professional working sense. There is much more to being a
professional designer than having an acquaintance with the body of
knowledge and having dabbled at some level.
One of the deep seated benefits of the traditional design training (and
I do accept its limitations!!) is that it produces a particular way of
seeing the world. These acquired values, these ways of working
sometimes intuitively or conjecturally, this comfort with ill defined
problems or uncertain information, are all characteristics that may be
special to traditional design. They contribute to what has been called
'designerly ways of knowing' (Cross 1982). I sometimes feel that in
the pursuit of systematic and methodical design, set within a
scientific paradigm, these special ways of thinking may be lost. I do
however accept that there may be other ways of inculcating these
desired values in design students.
As Chris Rust said "Sometimes we seem surrounded by people who imagine
that they can uproot designing from the culture that has sustained it
thus far (arguably with a great deal of success), reshape it to match
their own pre-occupations and yet still retain its value and vigour."
In my view there are great inherent dangers in this reshaping if from a
position of ignorance.
Many of the ideas in the report are of course not new. There have been
calls for some radical thinking about design education over many years
and these have been raised at various conferences. We know that within
academies around the world, some changes are happening already. It is
reported that the traditional art foundation course at Carnegie-Mellon
University was replaced over a decade ago in favour of an approach that
develops intellectual skills (Buchanan, 1999). Another example is the
University of Applied Sciences, Koln where traditional divisions
between subjects within design have been abandoned in order to educate
generalists, not specialists (Koln 2000). Perhaps somebody could
comment on the success of this latter programme? There is robust
research in many institutions, both by staff and by doctoral
candidates. The emergence of specialist institutes such as Ivrea and
the better integration of undergraduate through to doctoral education
(f.ex Rust and Fisher 2003) are all examples of new developments in
educational thinking.
However, there was a comment that most of us, however clear sighted and
radical we might feel, are simply not able to wipe away what we have
created and just start again. Many schools of design in the UK, for
example, are struggling to find their footing in the new university
system. Among the issues are the move from elitist to mass education
in design, recruitment and consequent economic pressures for many at
the moment, as well as determining the very place of the art/design
school in a university. Under government proposals there is a debate
about whether to be research institutions or teaching only
institutions. Our design schools inhabit considerable real estate,
have large workshop and machinery resources, and are consequently
relatively expensive to run. All these things are severe constraints
on thinking clearly about change. The UCI school is an opportunity to
start afresh, to see just how far the envelope might be pushed, and for
the rest of us to learn from that experience.
In the UK, as in some other places, we are aligned closely with art in
the sector known usually as art and design. This is a historical
hangover arising from the beginnings of design in the art school
movement of the century before last. Art offers us little today, and
it is time that design created its own domain and stood alone. The UCI
proposal is clear about this too. However for the rest of us, as
Tevfik Balcioglu said "Design is divorcing!... Don't forget the divorce
process is complicated, expensive and time consuming."
One comment that I disagreed with was: "I view this situation as one
in which design is now crossing a major threshold, from craft to (dare
I say it?) science or engineering."
This was rightly challenged in the context of the craft skills that
will continue to be required by students in the courses envisaged at
UCI, and in the touchy subject of whether we would move toward
engineering. John Broadbent summed it up for me when he called the
statement "much too naive and reductionist." I agree. It also
narrowly defined 'craft' in the context - and as a subset of -
predominantly industrial design.
Leaving those issues to one side, this did raise for me the areas that
are left out of the UCI proposal. One or two respondents mentioned,
for example, visual communications and graphic design. I do not see
these as different from design.
An area not discussed is the crafts themselves. I refer here to the
various craft based areas of ceramics, metalsmithing, jewellery,
interactive crafts, surface pattern, illustration?, glass etc. and, at
the border with art, other forms of expressive arts. They are not
highlighted in the report. It is my impression that the reporting team
had no members from any of these areas. Certainly in the UK system,
the crafts are a large area. I see them as part of the mainstream of
design. If we all were able to adopt a UCI type model for our own
institutions, this raises the issue of where the crafts might be
situated? Are they not to be 'intellectualised' along with 'design'?
Are they really somebody else's problem? Tutors from the crafts have
been conspicuously absent from this debate, and I wondered whether any
of you lurking would like to comment?
In spite of what I have said here, the UCI proposal has much to commend
it. The university and the report's authors are to be congratulated on
making public a document that will have given many of us an opportunity
to think about these issues, debate them with others, and perhaps go
back to our own Executives with evidence of how a vision for the future
of design education might be articulated.
MP Ranjan said "...let me tell you in no uncertain terms that it has
been an extremely stimulating and satisfying intellectual experience
for me and I believe that this event will send its ripples down the
design academia to return with renewed vigour the call for deep change
and deeper reflection in design practise, which only a place located
within a University (perhaps) can provide."
I couldn't have said it better.
David Durling
---
REFERENCES
Buchanan, R. (1999) Design research and the new learning: interaction
design and new product development. Paper presented to Design
Council/DEED conference, London.
Cross, N. (1982) Designerly ways of knowing. In: Design Studies,
Vol. 3, No. 4, pp.221-227.
Rust, Chris and Tom Fisher (2003). Growing our own. In: Durling,
David and Kazuo Sugiyama, editors. (2003) Proceedings of the Third
Conference Doctoral Education in Design 14-17 October 2003. Japan:
University of Tsukuba. ISBN 4-9980776-2-7
Swann, C. (1989) 'On Not Sitting With Nellie', Working Party report on
Teaching and Learning Strategies in Art and Design. The joint working
party of the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA) and the
Committee for Higher Education in Art and Design (CHEAD). See also
Group for Learning in Art & Design,1987,On Not Sitting With Nellie, in
GLAD, 1998, Demonstrating Good Teaching in Art and Design, conference
report.
Swann, Cal and Ellen Young. Editors. (2000) Proc. of conference
Re-inventing design education in the university, Curtin University,
Perth, WA 11-13 December 2000, 29-36, ISBN 1-74067-028-0
ARi_____________________________________________
Dr David Durling
Director, Advanced Research Institute
Staffordshire University
Stoke on Trent, ST4 2XN, UK
tel: +44 (0)1782 294556 (direct)
tel: +44 (0)1782 294602 (ARi office)
fax: +44 (0)1782 294530
email: [log in to unmask]
web: http://www.ari.staffs.ac.uk
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