Systems thinking and connecting the silos of design education

Benson, Eric; Park, Hyuna

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/126073 Copy

Description

Title

Systems thinking and connecting the silos of design education

Author(s)

• Benson, Eric
• Park, Hyuna

Issue Date

2013-09-05

Keyword(s)

• Design Education
• Systems Thinking
• Liberal Arts
• Interdisciplinary

Date of Ingest

2025-02-28T20:36:00-06:00

Abstract

While the design industry is a complex and multidimensional landscape, the current design curriculum lives in stark contrast: linear and compartmentalized. University product design curricula are mainly insular, where studio art is separated from liberal arts courses, despite their close physical and theoretical proximities. While this separation allows students to effectively attain proficiency in skillsets relevant to the product design discipline, students do not learn how liberal arts education can complement their design knowledge. These silos of practice stand in opposition to the type of creative processes and collaborations necessary to help solve the issues that humanity faces today. Wicked problems1 like climate change must be discussed in design education. The solutions to these problems mandate collaboration with other disciplines such as anthropology and/or engineering. This article is a proposal for new research examining how a liberal arts “integrated” design education may enhance the design students’ systems thinking abilities. A more effective design curriculum will need to employ a systems thinking methodology, so a project can be viewed as a part of an entire system of connected concerns. This mode of thinking would not render the designer a generalist, but instead one that is always seeking to collaborate and explore outcomes outside of their typical artifacts. This article will also examine how the current product design education is structured and, despite the differences in the teaching and learning environment of liberal arts courses are different from studio art courses, they could and should work together effectively.

Publisher

The Design Society

Series/Report Name or Number

DS 76: Proceedings of E&PDE 2013, the 15th International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education

Type of Resource

text

Genre of Resource

conference paper

Language

eng

Copyright and License Information

• Eric Benson
• Hyuna Park

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