(re)Designing Design Labs. Processes and Places for a New Generation of Designers=Enterprises
DS 81: Proceedings of NordDesign 2014, Espoo, Finland 27-29th August 2014
Year: 2014
Editor: Miko Laakso, Kalevi Ekman
Author: Bianchini, Massimo; Bolzan, Patrizia; Maffei, Stefano
Series: NordDESIGN
Institution: Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Section: Education and teaching of design, product development, and innovation
Page(s): 085-094
ISBN: 978-1-904670-58-2
Abstract
The rise of the new Designer=Enterprise model is being driven by the emerging manufacturing renaissance and geared by the integration of digital and analogue production processes and technologies. This emerging productive model generates new categories of designers micro/self-producers that act as independent innovators in developing original, autonomous and integrated design-manufacturing-distribution processes. The paper argues that current design education processes and practices could be changed and updated in order to provide these new skills. The first part analyses how designers’ capabilities are changing due to the development of experimental makerspaces like Fab Labs. The second and third parts combine literature review and desk research to verify how design schools and universities belonging to Cumulus Networks are (re)designing their makerspaces in order to develop new forms of design education (and vice versa). Finally, the basic knowledge identified is used to define what form this design education could take.
Keywords: Designer=enterprise, design education, digital fabrication, self-production