Abstract:

Design education is a specific setting that facilitates learning through lecturing, demonstrating and practicing. It relies heavily on project-based learning, studio-based learning, experiential learning, and public critique. Evaluating the quality of creative work in design education is unavoidably complex and controversial. Assessment involves fallible human judgment, especially in art and design. Studio assessment includes criticism, which is recognized as a form of design thinking. Criticism can be both formative and summative, and is best demonstrated in design education through the final studio review. This review event occurs at the end of a studio project. It is where students present their work to peers, faculty and invited external jurors. These jurors are either visiting faculty or practicing professionals. They are invited by the instructor as recognized experts in the discipline. But what level of expertise is required for a juror to successfully participate in this form of educational assessment?

This paper discusses the roles of a design studio review juror and the levels of expertise needed to be in this position of authority. Where a critic is an expert who possesses experience, tacit knowledge, education, and reputation in the profession, a connoisseur tends to go above the minimum expert requirements. A connoisseur has established his personal evaluation criteria through years of insightful and calculated evaluation experience. He has developed the ability to make precise discriminations among complex qualities, to pay attention to the subtleties of an object or creative work.

The argument is made that a design studio review juror does not need to understand fine distinctions and discriminations to be a critic in undergraduate lower level studios. In these studios, critics with a general level of expertise can catch small and obvious errors. However, the juror needs the ability of a connoisseur to participate successfully in graduate level reviews, when a student’s discipline-specific skills and knowledge is high and minor errors are unlikely to be made. Students at this level are more advanced and are independent thinkers. An understanding of the fine distinction between a critic and connoisseur can aid educators in selecting the most appropriate juror for their design studio reviews.

Keywords:

Design education, studio, critic, connoisseur, expert.