Sharing Understanding of Assessment Criteria in Design Project Tutorials: Some Observations of, and Implications for, Practice

This paper discusses and develops several findings out of a small action research project conducted in the context of a first year design studio. The basis for the project arose out of feedback that design critique is ambiguous, subjective and largely unqualified from the student point of view. While we implement criterion-referenced assessment (CRA) in design units, it is a struggle to identify and clearly express criteria and standards for design projects. Tutors may also struggle, as they relate their own frames of reference for design quality to the order of a CRA matrix. If the academics leading design units have difficulty with defining and agreeing on objectives and the standards against which student achievement is assessed, then where does that leave the student? The paper proposes framing a space of shared understanding by incorporating a dialogical address to criteria and standards into teaching practices, cumulatively expanding this discussion into more pervasive operational and developmental terms that embrace both the procedural and the (often delightful and surprising) declarative knowledge of our students

Orienting Design Education: Implementing an Orientation Field Trip as an Introduction to Design Education

"Project: Freshwater" is an orientation experience for Built Environment students at the Queensland University of Technology. In the third week of the semester this field trip takes the First Year cohort out of their familiar urban environment and into an extraordinary natural setting for four days in order to facilitate goals of socialisation, enculturation and education. It sets the tone for the whole course, establishing a sense of belonging and group identity amongst the design disciplines (industrial design, architecture and interior design), breaking down traditional staff/student barriers. Students develop an awareness of each other as emerging professionals and an awareness of the cultural diversity and a sense of community possible within the university environment. Through presentation and discussion of the context, structure and content of the programme and it’s five year evolution this paper explores the educational objectives of: the development of visual and verbal communication skills; experiencing design thinking through practical discovery; promoting interdisciplinary thinking and approaches to design; promoting independence in personal and group learning skills; and introducing concepts of enhanced environmental awareness and product life cycles as informers of design intention. The long term impact on students, future plans and suggestions for others thinking of implementing such a programme are discussed

State Library Queensland

Sheona Thomson writes about the transformation of a public institution in relation to a study on post-occupancy. "Brisbanites like me, with memories of long hours of study in the former buildings of the State Library of Queensland, can only marvel at the living institution we have in our city today. For most of the 80s, our bookish pursuits were hosted in the fustily intimate reading rooms of Centennial Hall, the late 1950s extension to the nineteenth-century building (formerly housing the state museum) by F. D. G. Stanley in William Street on the north bank of the Brisbane River. At the time, the wheels of an expansive cultural ambition were turning, and piece by piece on the south bank of the river the rambling Queensland Cultural Centre was realized. The fourth stage of the complex opened in 1988 as the new home for the State Library and for many years after, countless studious, transient folk whiled away time in the deep interiors of the straight-faced concrete and glass edifice by Robin Gibson and Partners...

Block works: a retail precinct along James Street in Brisbane is made more permeable by Richards and Spence

A retail precinct along James Street in Brisbane is made more permeable by Richards and Spence

Connections not boundaries: Future learning and physical spaces

In the developed world, we feel the effects of "digital disruption" in our experiences of the spaces of retail, hospitality, entertainment, finance, arts and culture, and even healthcare. This disruption can take many forms: augmentation of physical experience with a digital complement such as the use of a bespoke mobile application to navigate an art museum, ordering food on digital tablets in a restaurant, recording our health data to share with a doctor. We also rate and review our experiences of a wide range of services and share these opinions with diverse others via the social web

The right fit: Christian Street House

Embracing the pleasures of constraint, this new house by James Russell Architect was designed to contextually inspired principles, creating a social and relaxed environment that suits the location’s subtropical way of life

Towards a literacy of attention

In 1997, business trend analyst Linda Stone proposed the term "continuous partial attention" to characterise the contemporary experience of wanting to be ‘a live node on the network’. She argued that while it can be a positive and functional behaviour, it also has the potential to be disabling, compromising reflective and creative thought. Subsequent studies have explored the ways in which technology has slowly disrupted the idea and experience of a "centred" and "bounded" self. Studies of ‘Gen Y’ show the ease with which young people accommodate this multiplying of the self as they negotiate their partial friendships and networks of interest with family and work. In teaching and learning circles in tertiary education we talk a lot about problems of student ‘disengagement’. In characterising our challenge this way, are we undermining our potential to understand the tendencies of contemporary learners? This paper begins a consideration of how traditional models, frameworks and practices might oppose these partially engaged but continuously connected and interpersonal "dividuals". What questions does this provoke for learning environments towards harnessing yet counterpointing the crisis students might experience; to recognise but also integrate their multiple selves towards what they aim to become through the process of learning

Block works

A retail precinct along James Street in Brisbane is made more permeable by Richards and Spence