STUDIO602: A Model for Designing Real World Collaborations Between Higher Education and Industry

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter draws upon the experiences of building an authentic collaboration between a University team of academics and students with a hospital design lab and healthcare practitioners to solve real world problems that the hospital stakeholders were ill-equipped to tackle. The collaboration was founded through establishing a like-minded community of practice built upon mutual trust, and the formation of a transdisciplinary design team. The STUDIO602 project demonstrated the mutual benefits of authentic collaboration between industry and higher education. Universities have expertise in supervising and mentoring student research teams to solve real-world problems. By building authentic collaboration between university research teams and hospital design teams innovative solutions to practical health care problems can be solved. Such collaborative design partnerships will lead to better health outcomes for society as innovative solutions to pre-hospital care, out-patient care, and innovative design of hospital infrastructure and technology-enhanced practices are developed. Extending these collaborations to international teams working remotely together we can widen the impact of the developments beyond New Zealand, and bring into the design team international expertise as well. We discuss the application of several techniques used in the software industry and how they relate to the STUDIO602 project—these include design thinking, team management, stakeholder engagement and rapid prototyping techniques. The innovation we are illustrating in this chapter through this project example are the development of pedagogical design principles to facilitate authentic collaboration between student design teams and industry.KeywordsAtelierSocial learning environmentsRhizomatic learningOntological pedagogiesHeutagogyDesign-based research