The Design Salon: An Experiment in Participatory Graduate Education

Abstract

Issue Alternative educational processes that challenge the traditional classroom hierarchies, authority structures, and knowledge structures should be explored. These processes may provide a venue for integrating societal, cultural, and theoretical issues into graduate interior design education. Goal The purpose of an experiment in graduate education at Pratt Institute was to create a learning community of faculty and students that develops students’ skills in ideation and critique, broadens their knowledge base in terms of design discourse, and encourages radical thinking. Application The Design Salon is an on–going experience in the Pratt Institute Graduate Interior Design Department. Based on Freire's dialogic model of education, it has created a setting for continuing discourse and exploration of ideas among students and faculty. The Design Salon experience has implications for organizing other courses at Pratt as well as for other graduate interior design programs. Description The Design Salon, its historical context, requirements, content, and process at Pratt are discussed. An argument is made for incorporating the Design Salon or similar participatory educational experiences into mainstream interior design at the graduate level. Conclusions The Design Salon represents a step towards a type of education that can create socially responsible designers who challenge the status quo and who are reflective and informed. It has implications that could infuse and fundamentally alter the process and content of graduate design education.