Indeed: I agree with Chris, and I oversimplified in the cause of
brevity. Rround the corner from Gavin, I have in the past sent new
researchers to join in introductory week-long courses that RMIT puts
on for those who think they might like to study there. You can get a
taste, but you can't develop the fluent skill. It's like knowing a
few phrases of French, or speaking it.
So even though I consider design to be THE way humans think, I am
also aware that we've hidden this and built on and against it for so
long that, culturally, it's difficult to get back to this root.
The egg packing exercise is a real standard. I have to say that in
any programme I've run, it's been the first thing to go! I know
better and more tasty ways of scrambling eggs!
Ranulph
On 1 Mar 2008, at 13:34, Chris Rust wrote:
> Ranulph Glanville wrote:
>
>> Design is an activity, a way of acting. You can't just do a crash
>> course in it,
>
> Actually, although I agree wholeheartedly with Ranulph on this, I
> believe you can have a crash course in design, it's just rather
> different from what Gavin is looking for.
>
> When I became an undergraduate student in design, I and my fellow
> students were given a 1 week crash course in design. On our first
> day we were told that we had one week to make a method of packaging
> a raw egg, using only cartridge paper and adhesive, that would
> allow the egg to survive a passage through the postal system.
>
> All the eggs ended up on the sorting room floor I'm afraid and I
> don't think we were very popular with the post office, but we
> learned a very significant lesson that has stayed with me ever
> since and, I believe, marks me out from people who have not had a
> similiar experience. At the start of the week we had absolutely no
> idea how we were to achieve this thing, there were no existing
> prescriptions, we knew of nobody who had done it, we knew very
> little about eggs or the structural performance of cartridge paper
> etc etc. By the end of the week most of us had produced creditable
> packages that showed a real understanding of structure and dynamics
> gained through a shared exploration (other people's design trials
> were at least as informative as our own and the social setting in
> the shared studio was essential). That idea, that you can deal with
> uncertainty and you will produce a response to this new and scary
> test, has stayed with me since and has been the underpinning of
> everything I have ever achieved.
>
> Of course it was another 4 years before I could claim to be any
> sort of professional qualified designer, and that on top of 15
> years of professional-ish experience in industry.
>
> best wishes from Sheffield
> Chris
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