Back to Basics: Using Esquisses to Develop Core Design Skills

Design education is increasingly complex. A proliferation of new and emerging design agendas combined with broader career pathways has resulted in curricula that is at maximum capacity as it attempts to develop knowledge, skills and competency across a broad range of subject areas. In seeking to address constantly evolving design practice, broad base curriculum can either lack of depth or neglect the core skills that underpin the profession. It is apparent in recent years that design students whilst knowledgeable and capable as design thinkers, are often unsupported in the development of the fundamental skills required for design ideation and communication. This paper describes curriculum initiatives aimed at re-establishing core design skills at the beginning of the design learning journey, in direct response to industry expectations. An observed lack of competency in the core areas of design communication (sketching, rendering and storyboarding) and creativity and ideation, resulted in revision to the level 1 curriculum at Brunel University London to facilitate student learning and to emphasis the importance of core design skills. A term-long program of weekly ‘esquisses’ was introduced to support the existing project-based curriculum. Resultantly, students now acquire skills through a skills development program, rather than indiscriminately (if at all) during design projects. The twelve exercises are a structured learning platform for skills acquisition that focus on development of design communication and ideation skills, supported by tutor demonstrations

Managing Industry Collaboration: Providing an Educational Model in a Client-Led Project

Collaborative projects with industry partners are critical to the relevance and success of the Swinburne University of Technology Product Design Engineering course. Such projects permit student access to critical ‘in-house’ industry experience and provide critical analysis and feedback from a commercial, not just educational, perspective. This paper examines the final year ‘professional project’ where students choose a project direction through the identification of a strong social need, then collaborate with industry partners(s) to realise a successful product outcome. Partners offer technical and manufacturing knowledge or an understanding of the market and user needs. Final outcomes are expected to be creative in design and innovative in the application of engineering theory, whilst meeting market needs and manufacturing objectives. The project is documented by a 16,000 word technical report containing the full rigour of academic research, design and engineering analysis. Issues arise when student objectives and educational requirements conflict with the commercial constraints of the industry partner. The student’s learning experience and creativity may be restrained by economic or manufacturing restrictions imposed by their project partner. The project intent must be carefully aligned with the expectations of all involved parties especially the technical partners who provide expertise and resources with the expectation of free research and development. Does the project result in design for production, or is it purely educational, albeit with a more informed commentary

Social innovation in the curriculum : a model for community engagement and design intervention

Social impact implies the capacity to create positive social change for communities and individuals. It is essential that innovation addresses the needs of those less fortunate, and empowers individuals and communities for improved societal wellbeing. This necessitates a fresh approach to curriculum and pedagogy, and educators have responded by engaging with humanitarian aid agencies to expose students to real world problem scenarios. These social design educational initiatives, however well intentioned, are often remotely located and students lack access to users and communities in need. Without this interaction, cultural and contextual aspects can be misunderstood, and solutions may be misdirected. A local context facilitates engagement and allows co-design processes to occur. The social project discussed in this paper has proven to be an effective model for social design. Students engage with end users within their local community, using design skills to respond to specific needs. Recipients benefit from assistive solutions, whilst students develop empathy and understanding. This design intervention model has delivered successful outcomes, and a unique learning experience

Towards Re-Imagining Industrial Design Education for the Contemporary Period,

It is proposed that a progressive Industrial Design education should focus on supporting students in learning to self-manage ambiguity and bolster their agile independence throughout the tentative undergraduate years of growth [1]. As the field of Industrial Design moves beyond its industrial manufacturing roots, exploration of curricula that anticipates contemporary issues such as decolonisation, diverse participation and complexity in creative innovation is still not prevalent in this contemporary period [2]. Such a context necessitates an accelerated disruption to traditional design pedagogical practices [3], as seen in the RMIT University Industrial Design programme My First Six Months (MF6M) - a first-year learner-centred initiative situated around capacity development, student agency, self-efficacy, and disruption of expectations about the power dynamics in learning and teaching. This paper outlines the adoption of the RMIT University, My First 6 Months (MF6M) first-year learner-centred pedagogical alignment into the 2nd and 3rd year vertically integrated studio environment, through the case study ‘Safeness by Design (SbD)– Enabling an Ageing Workforce’ – a collaborative partnership with the Innovation Centre of WorkSafe Victoria, a state government safety regulatory body. In curating the studio’s outcomes, it became evident that the embedded predispositions developed throughout their MF6M experience, activated the diversity of students’ thinking and acting in situations resembling real-world design practice, which achieved our SbD studio’s pedagogical ambitions. We found this model to be highly transferable, requiring less teaching staff intervention and giving more flexibility to students, by reinforcing notions of independence, trust and self-efficacy in learning. Students are scaffolded as they dynamically explore and frame their own inquiry questions and continue developing their professional identity throughout their studies. In doing so, the classroom is firmly situated as a safe and democratic creative space, whereby teaching staff adopt a coaching role to establish a collaborative partnership, to further support student capacity and confidence

Safeness by Design: A New Design Paradigm?

Design has the potential to significantly improve safeness and wellbeing, and to identify and reduce risk either during the design phase or through targeted design interventions concerning product, infrastructure, systems and services. The broad user-centred skills and technical knowledge base of designers allows for clear problem definition using ethnographic discovery processes, and creative design and innovative design resolution in a socio-technical context. As designers transition from product dependent (and market driven) outcomes to less tangible activities, increasingly the role of design as an enabler of societal wellbeing, capable of making a greater contribution to communities and lifestyles, opens up new practice foci. Whilst design has always been required to address safety from a compliance and/or product liability perspective, ‘Safeness by Design’ aims to apply an explicit safeness lens to design practice. Aspirational in its intent, it seeks to operate outside of safety compliance frameworks; utilising human centered design, experience and interaction design, social design and service design approaches, rather than risk management methodologies, to achieve actual or perceived safeness. This paper suggests Safeness by Design as a new design paradigm, examining the contribution of early works to safer urban contexts, and proposes a safeness-led approach to design practice

The Importance of Design: a comparative evaluation of problem solving in engineering education.

Engineering education has been criticised for focusing solely on the science of engineering, to the detriment of preparing students for the practice of engineering. Graduates are considered by many in industry to be ill-prepared for real world problem solving and to have limited experience in applying their engineering knowledge to product outcomes. Instruction in design is uncommon, and where existing, follows a linear and predictable process that does not afford students opportunity for experimentation and exploration. However new engineering education pedagogy seeks to address these issues through early integration of design and project based learning into the curricula. This paper describes the initial findings of a comparative evaluation exercise conducted to measure relative aptitude in problem solving by two disciplines of final year engineering students and thus validate the impact of new engineering curricula. The evaluated students were from a typical Mechanical Engineering course and from the less conventional Product Design Engineering program which integrates industrial design studies into mechanical engineering curricula. Students’ problem solving methods were observed, the design outcomes were evaluated and participants surveyed. These exercises challenged the student’s problem framing and solving abilities and required the application of engineering science and design acumen to achieve a creative solution for either an open-ended or constrained problem. The early findings of this ongoing investigation are examined here, and the benefits of developing a creative design focus within an engineering curriculum are clearly evident

Enabling an ageing workforce: Using design to innovate the workplace and empower older workers

Australia’s population is ageing, but with enhanced health prospects and insufficient retirement funds, and industries impacted by a dwindling itinerate manual labour supply, workers will want, and may need, to remain in the workforce for longer. However, as people age, they lose muscular strength, experience a decline in physical and cognitive performance, and are more vulnerable to muscular-skeletal issues caused by repetitive or awkward movement patterns. Consequently, ageing workers in occupations that require sustained physical activities are at increased risk of injury and exacerbated physical decline and may experience ageist discrimination in the workplace that impacts their psychological wellbeing. This research, Enabling an Ageing Workforce, recognises the issues facing the older worker across a range of different workplace contexts and asks the question: How can design and new technologies address the compounding factors of an ageing (working) population and enable older workers to continue to be productive and effective whilst ensuring their personal wellbeing? Enabling an Ageing Workforce’ is a collaborative research and design project between RMIT University’s ‘Safeness by Design’ initiative and the Innovation Centre of WorkSafe Victoria. This project investigates ageing, wellbeing, and workplace safeness within specific industries to identify areas of concern, opportunities for design intervention, and the proposal of future-focused design solutions. The researchers conduct a substantial scope of enquiry, while concurrently undertaking a partnered design studio with Industrial Design students, to develop and respond with appropriate design solutions. The research identifies that safeness issues exist across specific industry contexts because of workplace culture, practices and predominant behaviours, specific work actions and activities, workplace design, economic and time pressures, and poor risk literacy, training and awareness. The design studio component sees students addressing research-identified issues across many industry sectors and workplace contexts to: • prevent musculoskeletal issues in healthcare workers in the homecare environment, • correct harmful movement behaviours in manufacturing environments, • support older workers in manual tasks, through assistive technologies, • address mental health in the construction industry, • reduce ladder injuries in the residential construction industry, • reduce vibration related injuries in the agricultural sector. This research reveals insights into how a ‘safeness by design’ lens can enable an ageing Australian workforce. Such an approach needs to balance pre-emptive and reactive safety measures, focusing on creating a safe and supportive working environment for all workers. Whilst it is important to support older workers to reduce risk or injury and to promote their capability and performance, enabling longevity, it is also critical to implement measures that protect younger workers from unsafe workplace behaviours, processes and expectations that can lead to longer-term impairment, and may result in them leaving that industry prematurely

Social Enterprise for Assistive Technologies: An operational review of Solve Disability Solutions

Executive Summary This report details an investigation by RMIT researchers into the knowledge capture and knowledge sharing procedures used by Solve Disability Solutions (Solve) which aimed to facilitate their operations and better support their volunteer network. Solve offers assistive technology solutions to clients with disabilities, chronic disease and age-related conditions to improve quality and life and enhance mobility and independence. Solve’s client support activities are delivered by a small team of Occupational Therapists (OTs) working in collaboration with a large volunteer network; many of whom are retired engineers and fabricators, with specific and relevant knowledge and skill sets. These volunteers work from their own premises to collaboratively design, develop and prototype and fabricate Assistive Technology enabling solutions for Solve clients. This system enables Solve to benefit from access to a large network of expertise, but it is possibly vulnerable in regard to critical knowledge and expertise being held outside the organisation, mostly within an ageing volunteer network. Whilst rudimentary knowledge capture procedures are in place to record project outcomes, it is difficult to accurately capture the full technical specification of complex solutions and many volunteers do not fully complete the process, due to a variety of reasons as detailed within this report