Abstract:

This paper reflects upon a joint-educational collaborative project, between two Design universities, one in Portugal and the other in Italy. The Collaborative Classes program provided by the Italian university, offered us the possibility to, on one hand, exchange design education approaches and on the other, provide students the opportunity to exercise critical thinking and improve their problem-solving skills while interacting with their peers from another country, with different cultural and educational backgrounds. Through an online workshop format, the teachers team proposed the students to work under the theme of “dwelling in transition”, asking them to reflect about the domestic space during the pandemic’s lockdown restrictions. The topic belongs to an ongoing research project that is collecting experiences, reflections and testimonials on dwelling, especially in a crisis period, and how our daily relationship with the city’s spaces, workplaces and leisure spaces changed during this time.

The workshop lasted 3 weeks, where both teachers and students used different educational and live platforms, to facilitate the communications between them and also to raise the creativity and innovation in a specific problem-solving scenario. The 13 outcomes of this workshop came up in different formats as visual diaries, small videos, experimental photography and innovative high-technical design solutions.

In conclusion, this joint education project has obtained several results in two different areas. First, in the pedagogical area, it achieved the valorization of innovative, technological tools and methods already experienced during the lockdown online teaching period. The design learning methods, which are based on collaborative processes, were nurtured by the new technological environments and ICT tools, which also contributed to the transfer of technological know-how. Second, on a social and cultural level, the project offered an intercultural and immersive experience with no need to travel abroad.

Keywords:

Collaborative Class, design education, dwelling during a pandemic, spatial design.