This .pdf of a paper: Lessons from Bauhaus, Ulm and NID: Role of Basic Design in PG Education M P Ranjan Faculty of Design National Institute of Design Paper submitted for the DETM Conference at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad in March 2005.
http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp/.Public/Bauhaus_Ulm_NID_2005.pdf ...contains a lot of good information on how design education was seen in these influential schools. It includes an encapsulation of the aims of the Bauhaus education and how that evolved as Max Bill became director at Ulm. I strongly recommend downloading it and reading it, for all those interested in deeper study of design education and its history. The last paragraph in the excerpt below really drives home my long-standing points regarding "getting the rubber on the road" and what Dave has pointed out - coached learning to put knowledge into practice (the studio) being key to crucial higher stage of design education - synthesis (which was also an educational concept described by Mortimer Adler). And where we hear endlessly of the importance of "Design Research," we seldom see the same, if not greater emphasis placed on individual creativity and vision, and studio/experienced-honed synthesizing skills. EXCERPT FROM SECTION ON ULM : "This took the Ulm contributions well beyond the areas of explorations conducted at the Bauhaus since these were restricted to the application in small objects of low complexity and the Ulm designers were venturing out into the world of complex products and looking for means to deal with this complexity at the structural and formal levels. The Ulm teachers raised the understanding of design to a new level through their practical demonstrations in the fields of household products, electrical and electronic products, automobile and transportation systems and in industrialized building while establishing unchallenged leadership in the field of Graphic Design. Taken together, the live demonstrations of design success across disciplines and a systematic documentation of their design pedagogy helped create the Ulm influence across the globe and spread it to many centers of design education Otl Aichers' models for design education explorations at Ulm that are beautifully modeled and represented in Rene Spitz's book "hfg Ulm: The view behind the Foreground", (page 86) where he compares conventional education models of the situated lectures (model 1) with the teacher in a dominant position holding the students in an array in front and holding forth with his lecture from a position of authority as compared to an alternate model where the student group is divided into sub-groups in a networked structure (model 2) with the teacher playing a facilitating role and the text caption accompanying both these image representations is quoted below: Model 1: Pedagogical principles Organisation Lecture Authority of teacher and of the material Mass processing Examinations Supervisions Certificates of class attendance Rigid syllabus and scheduling From theory to practiced Knowledge Model 2: Pedagogical principles Free community Free form of instruction Discussion Teachers only in auxiliary capacity From practice to theory Working independently Personal interest Incentive Enjoying the work Going deeper Unfolding of personal talents Experimental learning instead of dead facts Teaching framework in lieu of syllabus Independent critical judgment So this does throw some light on the difference in lecture based conventional education and the hands on experiential education seen in the basic design courses at Ulm and now in many design schools. I also see that while "Design Research" may be about the creation of "design knowledge" the use of this knowledge in "Design Action" would be in the form of an exercise of contextual judgment in design synthesis when numerous threads of factors from multiple knowledge streams get embedded into a particular solution. Design education needs such critical-ability forming processes and not just knowledge gathering skills and processes." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=27429 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
