Abstract:

Instilling passion, values and programmatic intelligence is a challenge faced by design educators globally. Leading students to understand the power of design to incite change serves to support societal interests and promote the value of design. We are welcoming into higher education a cohort of politically aware, and engaged individuals eager to incite change. Eager, yet still within the “instant gratification generation” that relies on the questionable qualities of social media, blogs and sound-bytes for their information. Eileen Grey famously stated: “To create, one must call everything into question”. This requires academically and scientifically founded understanding of the problem: facts over opinion. This presentation reviews the processes of a 6-week assignment sequence within a writing intensive undergraduate course which served to support higher-level programmatic thinking in studio applications. Outcomes focused on developing a socially aware professional value system and understanding of the complexities and interconnected needs of the individual, society and the planet. Formatted under traditional requirements for programming processes to set a foundation for studios, the course content was sequenced and developed to support intensive independent exploration of complex ideas based on three primary topical regions: cognitive and physical influences, social justice and environmental concerns. Using environmental psychology foundations, shared learning techniques and hybridized classroom tools, students developed awareness of the myriad of subtopics within these wide categories. Topics were addressed in an intentional order allowing the interconnected qualities of the research to become apparent. Students complete in-depth investigations of human centered physical and cognitive studies. Research then turns to social justice topics which connected the human experience with society, culture, economy and global conflict as it relates to the built environment. A study of environmental concerns furthered the connectivity to prior research. A full literature review is then completed on a final topic driven by prior works. Outcomes demonstrate a widespread adoption of higher-level programmatic thinking, and interconnectivity of ideas from all topical regions. Through this process of self-discovery, students became enthusiastically engaged in intensive dialogues for change, developed an understanding of the complex relationships of all topics and developed distinct professional value systems. As exemplified by Finks taxonomy, significant learning outcomes were apparent through several evaluative means; including programming and project outcomes of subsequent studios. Communication skills were improved and higher-level dialogues and terminology were utilized. Post project discussions and surveys demonstrated development of passionate engagement in topics driving professional goals towards societal good. We are pivotal point in design education as we greet this new generation of engaged and driven individuals. This generation is critically positioned to break the architectural paradigms of exclusion, segregation and ecological degradation. Driving passion and values and the ability to look at a project with an eye to the intertwined complexities of the problem will support a shift to a more socially profitable architectural paradigm.

Keywords:

Design thinking, globalism, social justice, programmatic thinking, professional values.