What you learned in design school studio was developed to be taught in a design studio.

That’s very different from saying design can’t be taught online. The corollary of what you are saying is also that what people learn in online courses can’t be learned in the studio (collaboration with people 10,000km away in a different culture, for example). I just don’t think the points you are making in your arguments stack up – you’re doing the apple and oranges switch.

Ooookaay I think it’s time to step away from this discussion if you think Goldsmiths is “shoddy”. I’m glad I didn’t mention my own institution as I’d have had to challenge you to a duel.

Jeff said:
“I think the disconnect here is that one side believes design involves thinking + doing + making, while the other side believes that thinking is enough. We’re talking about two different things.”

No I don’t think it’s right to characterise it in that way. I teach design *making* as well as thinking (I don’t see the two as separate – true craftsmanship derives from thinking and reflecting).

And you definitely can teach the “making* side of things remotely, because it is being done. Does teaching in a studio guarantee good learning? Of course not.

You say Lauren and I assert that design that thinking and doing can be divorced. Actually we don’t. Thinking is doing.

But you also, in turn, assert that the resulting design is in some way impoverished. Please visit Lauren’s web site and you’ll see that her design work is far from impoverished. It is, in fact, rather exciting.

What I have attempted to do is say simply that design education is not easy. It isn’t a matter of one way of teaching and, considering that we claim to be a discipline that is innovative, forward thinking and creative, it is rather odd that when it comes to our own discipline we are anything but. There are examples of creative, innovative teaching in design worldwide. But this blog post seems either dismissive of those, or refuses to even investigate them before passing judgement. That, to me, is rather insulting. And blinkered.

There’s a simple answer to this problem: are there any examples of design being taught successfully without using traditional apprentice/master techniques? The answer is yes. I’ve mentioned some places that do it but apparently they’re “shoddy” so there you go. I bow to the expertise on display in that comment which clearly demonstrates that you don’t need to think before typing.

Nick: you’re absolutely right about prototyping – but why does it have to be taught or done in a studio at the hands of a master? The best learning is experiential – that, I think, is what you’re saying. But if you’re developing a service then surely the prototyping would be happening in the community/hospital/business? If you’re developing an understanding of how a client sees their brand, why would you be in a studio instead of in among their staff?

A colleague of mine gave a lecture to my first year students and simply *mentioned* prototyping as an aside in a talk about her practice as a jeweller. Suddenly students of all disciplines were doing it. They weren’t taught it, they were exposed to the concept and explored it further. The “teaching” (the lecture) took place in a traditional lecture theatre. But the “learning” (the experiential stuff you’re talking about, quite rightly) which happened in lots of places including the studio, sure, but also the canteen, the corridor, their shared homes, their workplaces, in conversations, in sketch books and note books…

Design schools and courses need to acknowledge that learning requires stimulus and opportunity. Insisting that creativity can only occur in a studio is simply wrong.

This article isn’t about doing/making, but a method of teaching and a place. Again I go back to the Open University model. Students on their courses do not attend lectures, or sit in a studio. But they prototype, they make, they sketch. They do it at home, or at work, in a shed, or at the kitchen table… and the results are good. They do collaborate with other students. They do work in teams. Often, indeed, they are working with teams in their jobs as they are studying part time.

The issue here is maybe one that is common, and I’ve seen it in many universities and colleges: we think that what worked for us must work for everyone. If the conversation is dominated by people who loved being in the studio, that’s what they think it should be like for everyone. Or if people are taking part who love being the teacher who wanders the aisles looking for a student to impress with their knowledge, then they will defend that way of teaching till the cows come home because it’s their “stage”. There’s a certain romance of the atelier.

But the reality is, many students hate the studio. They find it an oppressive place to work, or a noisy place. They find themselves being overlooked by tutors who hover around their favourites, or simply find that “studio hours” don’t suit the reality of modern students’ lives. They need more flexibility in the way design is taught and learned and we, as supposedly creative people, should be able to provide that.

If you’ve got a group of five students, then why can’t the teaching happen on a few sofas over coffee? If a student has an idea at home, why can’t they email me or Skype me in the hope I have time to help? (I helped a student work out a conceptual model for a service via email last month. No studio was harmed in the making of that) Why force students to sit at a desk and wait for the teacher to come and sit next to them and tell them what they should be doing?

Good teaching and good learning can happen anywhere, and not (looking at Dan here), just in “top tier” schools.

The thing that isn’t being addressed in this conversation is what are the factors, other than the location, that contribute to those two things?

On top of the kinaestheic value of a hands on education, I’m also a firm believer that great design (generally) happens in teams, and remote working just doesn’t work for highly collaborative phases of projects – I need to have conversations surrounded by the ‘stuff’ I’m working on. Sure, for detailed delivery stuff you can work over the internet.

Thus, because prototyping and team work (two of the core ingredients of design practice) can’t really happen without getting hands on in a group (!) I really don’t see how you can teach it (well) over the web.

If you take the position that design is only about thinking (design thinking!), I can see how design might be taught remotely. With enough technology it’s possible to replicate a lecture in virtual space, and a lecture or conversation is sufficient to teach thinking.

But if design also involves making– well that’s a tougher nut to crack. I don’t believe thinking and making (and doing) can be divorced quite as easily as Jonathan and Lauren assert. The resulting design is impoverished. You’re left with fantastic ideas but an inability to communicate them with authority.

If we include making in our conception of design (as I and anyone from Carnegie Mellon will demand) then studio instruction is necessary. I don’t believe that technology can mediate studio sessions that live up to their physical counterparts. Even if the formal aspects could be replicated I’m not convinced that the serendipity or cross-pollination of a studio environment could be translated to a virtual space.

A good example of the kind of formal interaction permitted by design studios is included in Daniel Schon’s book The Reflective Practitioner.

As for lying with research, please see my talk Lying with Design Research. In short: yes, research can be made up. Should I trust soft academic research on a challenging topic on which they have a vested interest or decades of design instruction? Show me just one top designer who was taught studio courses online.

In closing (because I’ve said everything I feel I need to say on this topic), I’m not an educator (anymore), only a designer. My knowledge is drawn from what I know firsthand from my own teaching and as a student in studio classes combined with what I know about the limitations of existing technology. Disagree with me all you want, but I’m 100% certain that what I learned and taught in design school could not have been as effectively taught online, or with the students not co-located with the professors. And I think a majority of people who had good design educations would agree with me.

The RCA does, to my knowledge, operate a distance learning option (it only teaches postgraduate courses, so it would have to), as do Goldsmiths and the University of the Arts, London… so there’s three for you!

As for not believing the research or its findings – erm, do you think we just make it up?

By the way Omnium worked with the RCA to set up an online environment for them to work in, so they have been doing this. But it’s also a loaded argument in any case – those institutions have a vested financial interest in getting “bums on seats”. Don’t underestimate the influence that the financials and personal/departmental politics have on the direction of education. The pressure of those usually outweighs any principles, sadly.

Remote teaching of design doesn’t actually need expensive equipment. A lot of teaching and learning in UK colleges is remote by default – the students work at home, or in each other’s homes, and not in a studio…

There’s something to the saying: “I guess you had to be there.”