Design education : explorations and prospects for a better built environment

Abstract

Design education is the cornerstone of design professions. The approach to and the content of it are the backbone of design practices. This suggests that it has to be encountered and to be dealt with as a rich field of pedagogical discourse whose foundations, underlying theories, contents, and methods can be questioned and critically analyzed. Reaching across the boundaries of cultures and regions, the theme of this volume addresses design education in its fullest sense in order to reflect its worldwide status in 2010. Contributions to the volume exemplify worldwide efforts in shaping the future of design pedagogy. Theorists, academics, researchers, and practitioners have been discussing the role of design education in shaping the built environment since professional education was established two centuries ago. Strikingly, research on design education continues to be marginalized in academia. While the practice of design professions has changed dramatically and keeps changing, design education in the built environment-related disciplines reacts in a very slow manner at best, or resists change or adaptation at worst. The work of the contributors in this volume, however, represents honest attempts to introduce change, and to tame and react to the demands placed on design professions by societal, environmental, and cultural needs. It addresses topical concerns that pertain to the goals and objectives, structures and contents, and delivery methods and techniques required for responsive design education, a type of education amenable to graduating designers capable of creating better built environments.