DES3151: Italian Design Studio: Blending Tradition and Innovation

DES 3151 Italian Design Studio: Blending Tradition and Innovation exposes students to the productive intersection of ideas using the city of Rome and its makers as inspiration and context for interdisciplinary design work. The study abroad studio course is submitted to the Council on Liberal Education for approval for a Global Perspectives Theme.Italian Design Studio meets general Core course requirements in the following ways:ENHANCING A LIBERAL EDUCATIONStudents in this course exercise design as a mode of thinking and practice in an interdisciplinary context. Design thinking is, at its essence, critical thinking for the material world. Design is a process of analyzing, interpreting and evaluating information from multiple viewpoints, and iteratively developing a response that synthesizes this information into a cohesive solution. Design projects never have a "right answer." Instead, students come to learn that "good design" emerges from a rigorous, creative and critical process of seeing design problems as design opportunities.In this way, design studio and design thinking have an intriguing synergy with the values of a liberal education. A liberal education prepares students to engage a complex, diverse and changing world by seeing problems from multiple viewpoints. Design problems are complex by nature and require expansive thinking. Students who think like designers actively seek a variety of perspectives and intentionally zoom in and out to see a problem at a range of scales and in a shifting context. Students who think like designers are naturally curious about almost everything, and see inspiration and opportunity everywhere. Immersion in another culture naturally piques curiosity and presents an immediate challenge to practice seeing (things and processes big and small) from other perspectives. A liberal education prepares students to critically evaluate information and integrate knowledge. From a liberal investigation, students who think like designers begin to discern what is important, relevant and interesting from what is less important, less relevant and less interesting. Designers understand where conditions are fixed and where they have agency to make design decisions. Because the design process is both generative and iterative, integrating new knowledge and reevaluating what is valuable in the investigation is ongoing. While the design process is not a linear one, students in this course do learn that it is nonetheless rigorous, involving the art of opening up a problem, synthesizing a multitude of forces, and working within constraints.A liberal education prepares students to engage the world as informed, ethical citizens. Design and making are deeply human endeavors that addresses who we are as physical, psychological, social, political and spiritual beings in relationship with the constant, changing and limited resources of our planet. Students in this course learn how the particular circumstances of time and place can have dramatic implications for our designed environment, from the scale of objects to the scale of cities.A liberal education prepares students to value diverse ways of knowing and modes of inquiry. Designing the material world?whether apparel, graphic, landscape architecture, architecture or interior design?invites a fusion of art and science. As a mode of inquiry, students in this course pursue design thinking as a rigorous and analytical process with a role for intuition and creativity. Designed objects and places express cultural aspirations and makes our experiences with the physical world poetic. In this way, de is allied with other arts and humanities disciplines. Yet, all designed things are beholden to a host of constraints or forces that lie beyond the control of the designer. Architecture, for example, must accommodate human behavior and needs, must shelter in a particular climate, and must respond to the laws of materials and gravit

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