Updating Values – FutureDesignEd 2020

Updating Values, the second edition of the FutureDesignEd Symposium – Innovation in Design Education, Innovation in Education by Design, was an opportunity to reflect upon and share priorities and principles in design education in an exchange with experts from 27 Countries.

Educators in the field of design, theoreticians and designers were asked to consider the needs and challenges of future design education. The research that was conducted, the data and case studies that were collected, the papers that were presented, gave rise to 12 points, leading from a focus on the student to an outlook towards the future, 12 points that we wish to share as the legacy of this experience.

They identify values we believe are core to design and design education, cornerstones for a lifelong process of learning and personal and professional growth: aware of the past, open to the future and engaged with the world.

Optimism

Optimism, confidence, outlook towards the future are essential attitudes for a student engaging in the field of design.

Time

Studying means allowing time. The time of learning can be expanded or compressed. The student learns to gauge his/her capacities in intensive design experiences or in more extended projects. Both are necessary.

Experience 

“Learning by doing” helps the student understand that he/she can acquire new knowledge through experience in the field, encompassing failure within the process of growth.

Research

The designer needs to shape his/her thinking in a diverse range of contexts, both humanistic and technical-scientific. Research, which is the foundation of cognizant design, gains knowledge from history and from the new.

Growth

The learning process continues over time, allowing for discontinuity, pauses that allow for the sedimentation of knowledge and the student’s growth.

Legacy

Knowledge is also built by listening to the voices of the Masters and engaging with teachers. The plurality within the University and experiences of individual and team work allows the student to address the project from different points of view.

Responsibility

Discussing real problems leads the student to interpret complexity addressing each design decision freely and responsibly.

Involvement

Direct engagement with citizens and other stakeholders in a structured process of collaboration enriches both the project and the student, preparing him/her to contribute to society in the future.

Courage

An ethical approach, receptivity to the new, flexibility towards change, tolerance of personal limits, are values that can help the student handle his/her relationship with tools and technologies that are increasingly interconnected and impact reality.

Curiosity

Embracing multidisciplinarity allows the student to develop the attention and flexibility necessary to face the wicked problems of today, the uncertainties of tomorrow and his/her relationship with an increasingly wide-ranging context.

Openness

Exploring the problems of the future and addressing the goals and guidelines issued by international organizations will develop the student’s capacity for projection and prefiguration that can be pivotal to improving the present.

Passion

Self-learning is an expression of passion towards design studies, and together with formal education, concur to the student’s life-long learning process.