Dual Delivery Design Studios: Exploring Design Learning for Hybrid Cohorts

In the wake of 2020’s move to remote learning and teaching, institutions of higher education began experimenting with approaches that combine face-to-face and online learning. This article reviews one learning and teaching group’s development of guidance for “dual delivery” and reports on focus group conversations with staff coordinating dual delivery design studios. It highlights key considerations identified by the group—learner equity and access, cohort building, and staff and student perceptions—and reports on efforts to address these through the design and coordination of studio subjects. This marks the first known study exploring hybrid/dual delivery in the design studio context. Findings suggest that treating the hybrid split-cohort mode of 2021 as an amalgamation of online and blended learning approaches is to ignore its unique learning design challenges, and to underestimate the implications of dual delivery for studio teaching. In addition to specific strategies for the design of studio learning activities, teachers’ “on-the-ground” reflections offer additional insights for studio coordination—on distributed, place-based learning; on peer-to-peer interaction around student work; and on approaching learning design on the premise of “contingency”. The article encourages testing of new pedagogic forms that can combine learning modes across space, and engagement with activities over time, in support of rich design learning for emerging hybrid cohorts

Design epiphany and the opportunities of wickedness: constructions of insight, perspective and design

© 2014 Dr. Kate Elizabeth TregloanThe thesis describes an investigation of Design Epiphany with a focus on its engendering, experience and application. A Design Epiphany experienced by the author contextualizes the discussion, framed by an intersection of knowledge, know-how, value and application within a particular project. A survey of related literature across a number of disciplines introduces Epiphany as neural phenomenon, cognitive mechanism, element of creativity, affective experience, and as cultural construct. Common threads inform the development of a general definition of Epiphany for the purpose of the thesis. A focus on the ‘wicked’ aspects and elements of design identifies reflective engagement as a key conceptual position and skill of the designer, and reviews significant distinctions between the linking of ‘problem’ and ‘solution’ in models of design. A new dynamic model of designing as iterative co-evolutionary proposal development is outlined, informed by writing on the forms of logic and practices than can assist design development. The value of Design Epiphany as both a means and an understanding of design progress is also explored. Difficulties associated with a lack of progress in design, ways a designer might experience positive progress, and factors that contribute to these experiences are considered. Design Epiphany is related to variation in the speed and direction of project momentum as both a contributing force and measure of impact, and as a particular form of design development. The thesis considers the relevance of personal perspectives and values to contemporary design. Personal Construct Theory informs interview discussions and repertory grid construction, and a focus on individual understandings of ‘good design/ing’ and the implications of these. Interview content and emergent themes are considered in the light of recorded studio conversations, project presentations and defense. Preferred practices enabling the application of constructs in designing are also explored. The development of personal design construct sets over time is investigated through analysis of repertory grids developed with student participants, supported by interviews with design practitioners and educators. Designers’ experiences of significant shifts in these construct sets, and the establishment of personal positions relevant to subsequent projects, is considered in terms of learning. A developed understanding of Design Epiphany is extended to consider its application at Project, Practice, Professional and Disciplinary levels, and related to the development of design expertise and the application of schema. Outcomes of the thesis include: • Definition of Design Epiphany; • Typology of Design Epiphany Experience; • Dynamic Model of Designing as Iterative and Co-evolutionary Proposal Development; • Model of the Relationship between Project Momentum and its Influences; • Method for Investigating the Development of Personal Design Constructs; • Description of a Designer ‘Prepared for Epiphany’ and Some Opportunities Offered by Wickedness. The thesis identifies ramifications and contentions that are relevant to design education and practice, and avenues for further research. Implications offer opportunities for clearer approaches to the formal education of designers, richer choices in the development of design outcomes, and improved engagement with complex and wicked problems outside of design disciplines. The study finds potential ‘in the eye of the designer’

Housing and Support for People with Disability: Perspectives of Motor Accident, Disability and Injury Insurers across Australia and New Zealand

Housing is a critical enabler of a dignified life, civic participation and the achievement of human rights. Providing appropriate housing for people who experience neurotrauma as a result of road or workplace injury, with both the assistive technology and human support required, continues however to be a policy and practice challenge. Australian and New Zealand motor accident, disability and injury insurers have high and enduring liability in this area, and their under-researched perspectives are needed to strengthen the evidence base for policy and practice development. This qualitative study utilised focus group methodology with representatives from government injury and disability insurers across Australia and New Zealand (n = 8). The study aimed to identify (a) issues and trends; (b) factors for decision making; and (c) service impacts relating to housing and support for people with disability and high daily support needs. Thematic analysis generated results across four key areas: influences on the decision to fund housing and/or support; identifying ‘good’ housing solutions; evaluating cost–benefit of housing and support investments; and developing future investment in housing and support. Findings such as those regarding decision-making, and investment, attest to the value of capturing the perspectives of this key group of stakeholders to assist to envision better housing and support for people with disability

Evaluating access and mobility within a new model of supported housing for people with neurotrauma : A pilot study

Objectives: (1) Evaluate the features of purpose-built apartment living on access, environmental control, and home and community mobility of people living with neurotrauma and (2) Examine tenant perceptions of those features. Research design: Observational case series pilot study. Setting: Three apartments within a residential development in Melbourne, Australia. Participants: Three males (aged 30–55 years) with traumatic brain and/or spinal cord injury living in the three separate apartments. Method and procedures: Measures: Two-published measures of user experience of built and technology environments, coupled with customised interdisciplinary post-occupancy evaluation (POE) methods and GPS-enabled mobility tracking. Analysis: Measures completed per manual guidelines and data reported descriptively. Customised measured drawings produced to represent tenants’ physical access and mobility. GPS community mobility data plotted on Google Earth. Results: Built design features which enabled access and mobility included linear paths of travel, well-located furnishings, and joinery design that allowed approach from either side using a wheelchair. Personal home furnishing choices posed barriers to physical access. Home automation technologies positively influenced participants’ sense of control and independence, but posed learning challenges. Close proximity of housing to accessible public transport and services enabled community travel options. Conclusion: Findings from this pilot study indicate the combination of housing location, design and technologies used, together with availability of local community services, provides an acceptable level of environmental control, access, mobility and tenant experience. Further research is required to determine validity of the novel measures used, and deliver rigorous research design to evaluate those features most important in achieving optimal outcomes

Designing STEAM Education: Fostering Relationality through Design-Led Disruption

A significant contention underpinning the commentary around STEM / STEAM is the evidence of discipline hierarchies, and inherent binary perspectives and/or biases that lend themselves to privileging one or more disciplines over another in an interdisciplinary education context. The current focus on increasing engagement with STEM in Australian schools provides opportunities to explore how the creative and liberal arts, and arts-based approaches to teaching and learning are being adopted to significantly enhance teaching and learning outcomes in and for STEM education. This article examines how design for a STEAM education programme evolves and is adopted in an Australian context. Tasmania represents one of the most vibrant creative communities in Australia. At the same time it has one of the lowest levels of educational attainment. Entrenched teaching habits and disciplinary hierarchies often create significant barriers to the implementation of STEAM despite genuine goodwill and enthusiasm for STEAM among teachers and within schools. This article argues that, despite the contrasting dynamics extant in the Tasmanian educational context, it is here that some of the nation’s most curious and exciting examples of STEAM teaching and learning have emerged. It offers an example of an innovative learning project and proposes the means by which these disciplinary strands have been effectively entwined