Multidisciplinary Design Education Research Articles

ENRICHING LEARNING EXPERIENCE THROUGH MULTIDISCIPLINARY DESIGN EDUCATION: STRUCTURE PROPOSAL FOR A LANDSCAPE DESIGN COURSE

Design related fields are quite intricate and it is hard to define strict boundaries in between these disciplines which cause the necessity of collaboration. Especially during professional careers, designers work in multidisciplinary environments where they need to develop responses collaboratively. However, undergraduate design education is being criticized for missing to fulfill this need. The aim of this paper is to discuss the role and benefits of multidisciplinary design education with the example of the course named “An Introduction to Contemporary Architectural Landscaping”. As the methodology of the paper, through deconstruction of the 3 parted course structure and analysis of student works, this paper analyses the role of a multidisciplinary education on students’ learning experiences. First two parts of the course focus on technical aspects of landscape architecture discipline, and cultural, physiological and psychological effects of landscape projects for users. Last part of the course focus on creating a platform for students to work in collaboration with other students to gain practical experience in design field where they develop a landscape architecture project on sites from their near environments. There are three main findings of the study. Firstly, inclusion of students from different disciplines in the same course increases the success rate via cross-learning experiences. Secondly, during design education, having the chance of participation to courses from different disciplines help to broaden students’ perspectives on problem solving during design phase. Finally, projects in environments that students experience in their everyday life increase their success rates. Results of the study that is based on the outcomes of the course that is conducted with the students of two different design departments indicate that this course structure and projects that are designed can be a guide for other design courses to develop a multidisciplinary course structure to include students from different disciplines, enrich their learning experiences and success after graduation.

A Study on Directions of Multidisciplinary Design Education for Specialized Education

A Study on Directions of Multidisciplinary Design Education for Specialized Education

The Impact of Multidisciplinary Design Education on the Creative Process in Collaborative Design

In an industrial environment, individuals from different kinds of academic backgrounds often form a team to work on a project. This study was designed to find out whether a multidisciplinary design education could have an influence on the process of concept design, which plays a pivotal role in the creative output, in the context of a multidisciplinary team where students from different departments form a team to complete a project. The creativity of the multidisciplinary design teams and of the non-multidisciplinary design teams was compared through a design task conducted twice with heterogeneous participants. Along with our evaluation of the creative output, we classified conversation contents according to a coding scheme in order to find out which design process could have an influence on the creativity of idea sketching. Moreover, we carried out an analysis of the number of conversations and of their contents in the teams belonging to each category. It was found that when students from various departments form a team, students who have received a multidisciplinary design education show more creative idea sketching, take part in more conversations using external knowledge and contributing to the problemsolving process, generate more ideas, and conduct more active reviews and summaries than students majoring in design only.The study enabled us to confirm that multidisciplinary design education was meeting its goal of equipping students with abilities to solve diverse problems that can arise within a team made up of members with different kinds of academic back-grounds in an actual industrial field.

Creating an Authentic Learning Environment: Is Multidisciplinary Design Education Successful in Facilitating Real-world Learning?

The education of digital media designers is largely structured around design students working individually on projects or in teams of designers. This is despite the fact that the intersection of several disciplines is a workplace reality. As a result, design students are being poorly prepared for working as part of multidisciplinary teams. In recognition of these shortcomings, a learning and teaching approach – the POOL Model framework – was developed to create a learning environment that is reflective of industry practice. The framework structures learning around multidisciplinary collaborative teamwork, engaging design students in project work with students from other disciplines such as information technology or multimedia journalism. The effectiveness of this approach in supporting real-world learning was first investigated in an undergraduate digital media design degree program over a period of three years. The relevance of this experience in the workplace was later explored once students had graduated and were working in the industry.

The Effect of Multidisciplinary Design Education for a Creative Climate in the Collaborative Design Process

Background : The demand for design college graduates with previous experience is increasing since industries progressively require more multidisciplinary project work. For more than a decade, beginning in countries such as Great Britain, the need for multidisciplinary design education has been felt and related research and education programs have been implemented. Following this trend, Korea also launched in 2009 a multidisciplinary design school development project. In the present study, we seek to verify whether, after three years following the inception of this project, the students who received this multidisciplinary education can be considered to have attained more creative problem-solving abilities than the students who majored only in design, based on their completion of a project after teaming up with students from various other departments. Methods : When it is heterogeneous and in the in-depth discussion stage, the EMT(heterogeneous teams, including multidisciplinary design majors) produced more creative output than the EDT(heterogeneous team, including design-only majors) as a result of a design task experiment. Therefore we compared the team climate, and how it affects the creative output, of the EDT and the EMT in the in-depth discussion stage of the heterogeneous groups by the conversation analysis. Results : The EMT had more conversations on the group climate and placed more weight on negative feedback than the EDT based on the results of the conversation analysis. Of the conversations related to the group climate, the amount of weight given to the conversations by design-only students and multidisciplinary students in each team showed that the latter participated in the conversations at a ratio for commenting more equally than the design-only students. Multidisciplinary students showed relatively uniform participation in the motivation, positive feedback, negative feedback and suggestion. However, the design-only students tended to concentrate on a particular aspect, especially motivation. Conclusion : This study was able to confirm that students who received multidisciplinary design education, when they form a team with various other majors to do a project and in the in-depth discussion stage, show differences in creative climate to solve problems and produce more creative output than students majoring in only design.

A Suggestion for Integrated Design Education System: A Case Study on Domestic College Programs

Background : With the growing emphasis on balanced, integrative thinking adaptive to today’s rapid socio-cultural changes, we observe significant needs for a multi-disciplinary design education system encompassing diverse fields of studies. In domestic college programs, however, a widely accepted design education system for cultivating multitalented students has not yet been established. The purpose of our study is to create guidelines for developing integrated design programs by performing a case study on integrated design programs in major domestic universities. Methods : We first extracted six criteria characterizing the integrated design programs via literature review: structure, method, target, operation, space, and communication. Using these criteria, we then conducted in-depth interviews with four professors to identify the present conditions and demands of domestic design programs. Results : In this study, we set new standards for the analysis of a design education system and understood the current demands of national education programs. We recognized the need for (1) a leader with a holistic way of thinking and a broad understanding of the different specialties, (2) the qualitative improvement of education methods, (3) education programs tailored to specific needs, (4) a government support system, (5) the minimization of physical distance, and (6) the need for being open-minded for effective communication. Based on these results, we suggested a future direction of the educational system suitable for the domestic education environment. Conclusion : The significance of our study lies in creating new standards for analyzing an integrative design education system, and suggesting a future direction of the educational system suitable for the domestic college education environment.

A Study on motion graphics Curriculum based on interaction by multidisciplinary Design Education Model Approach

A Study on motion graphics Curriculum based on interaction by multidisciplinary Design Education Model Approach

INNOVATIVE FINAL YEAR DESIGN PROJECT-INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE MAKES A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE

The Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Calgary is proud to be a leader in multi-disciplinary design education in Canada by bringing many facets to design education including internationalization. This design education produces many contributions to university, industry and society by developing innovative design solutions. This paper explains the novel approach adopted for the final year civil engineering design course in 2002/3 using the largest urban renewal project currently underway in Europe, which the students the opportunity to develop designs. The concept, structure, challenges, contributions and the successful outcome of the civil engineering design course are also explained in the paper.