Definitions of Design

One of the things I’ve been pondering is that we’re probably operating off of different definitions of design (Paul mentioned this as well). Not that there’s anything wrong with that, and in fact, I think that successful product design (e.g. the learning center) requires that each of these design views achieve their respective goals simultaneously. Also, I think that while there may be certain universal approaches to a design process (e.g. IA Collaborative methodology or the IDEO methodology) that could be applied to a broad variety (any?--probably not) comprehensive design problem, some approaches are more efficient at arriving at a solution than other, depending on the nature of the problem, and whether it favors one view of design more than another.

At the risk of gross oversimplification, my thought is that the three kinds of design: market development and branding (which is I think IA’s main focus), industrial design, and engineering design work primarily on developing different kinds of artifacts, using different media, subject to different kinds of forces or rules:

Marketing (design, a la IA Collaborative):

• artifact: branding strategy, product identification
• media: mostly information technology, in a broad sense
• forces: human cognitive and emotional behavior, psychology

Industrial design:

• artifact: physical form, the shell of a later engineering design
• media: malleable physical stuff
• forces: human sensory perception and satisfaction, ergonomics

Engineering design

• artifact: physical form (that which underpins the high-level version developed by the industrial designer)
• media: physical stuff (required to compose the details of the shell developed by the ID)
• forces: laws of nature (e.g. gravity, conservation of energy, etc)

My sense is that understanding these three kinds of design, and how they relate to each other, is a key to developing an academic program in integrated design. Though we haven’t really brought this to the surface, I think this is what we have been working towards as we try to pull the class together. If we do find a way to integrate and articulate these 3 views of design, I think we’ll have something really powerful.

Does this make sense? Other thoughts?

Duke Link

This is one of the best examples I have seen of an innovative learning environment. Take a look at these pictures on Flickr. I especially like the team/groups rooms.

Competition: design a great classroom

Will brought this competition up to us. Here's a teaser:

Teachers and students know what makes a classroom work. We're inviting you to design the classroom of the future together.

According to the World Bank, educating all children worldwide will require the construction of 10 million new classrooms in more than 100 countries by 2015. At the same time, millions of existing classrooms are in serious need of repair and refurbishment.

Hmm...maybe something we should consider?

Pixar's work spaces

Pixar is another innovative organization that has amazing spaces. You can get a feel for their "offices" here and also here.

City Museum

Stephanie Eng posted this last semester. It's worth posting again!

While visiting St. Louis, MO last weekend I was slightly disappointed when I found out that I would be spending my afternoon in a museum, The City Museum. Don't get me wrong, I do have an appreciation for the arts and can appreciate the vast collection of knowledge found at the typical museum. I, however, am not a huge fan of reading plaque after plaque attempting to soak in and appreciate every exhibit. Quite frankly, I am typically mentally exhausted after a few hours in a massive museum. I was more than pleasantly surprised to find out that this is not "the typical museum," according to my kind hostess. It's about experiencing the museum by using your every sense. The museum is housed in a 600,000 square-foot warehouse and every part of the museum has been recycled from the city of St. Louis. Like any innovative experience, no words can do this museum justice. Bob Cassilly, the man who came up with the idea of this unique museum says, "CITY MUSEUM makes you want to know. The point is not to learn every fact, but to say, 'Wow, that's wonderful.' And if it's wonderful, it's worth preserving." In short, however, the museum is like a giant playground that even adults can crawl through. As soon as you enter you start exploring and crawling through whatever small passageway you can find that can range from crawling through a giant whale (mouth to butt - yep!), tubes of metal, hollowed logs, and a fake cave (these are only a few examples). One of the museum's highlights is the seven story spiral slide, a personal favorite. After crawling around inside of the museum it's time to try exploring the old airplanes suspended in the air outside the building. Like I said, it's tough to explain so check out this photo tour on their website ... http://www.citymuseum.org/phototour.html Experiencing the innovative The City Museum was truly unique and incredible. Even though I may not have left with facts and figure about St. Louis, my heart was captivated through this a-typical learning experience.

Innovative museum

The California Academy of Sciences just opened this new building which may be the greenest building in the world. I like the looks of the thing, but the way this building works is even more amazing. The level of both innovation and design that went into it puts it way on top of my WOW list. There are tons of reviews of the building [here's one]. For example, the roof is a field or lawn with over 1.7 million native plants that insulate the building, capture rainwater, and provide a 2.5-acre habitat for butter flies, hummingbirds, and other critters. Inside, you can see the outside from almost any location and shredded blue jeans insulate the walls. And there are 60,000 photovoltaic cells along the roof's edge to provide electric power. Even tearing down the old building was an exercise in greenery: The 12,000 tons of old steel & concrete were recycled.

Treehouses as study spaces

I told some students about a class I lead a few years ago where a group of students and I proposed some renovations for the Commons. We suggested building some "tree houses" back by Commons C (the egg room) as innovative spaces for teams to gather and work. This is picture is something like the ideas we pitched. I still think these would be awesome to have there....Find out more about this real tree house here.