MAPPING DESIGN STUDENTS’ AESTHETIC AND VISUAL PREFERENCE
Year: 2016
Editor: Erik Bohemia, Ahmed Kovacevic, Lyndon Buck, Christian Tollestrup, Kaare Eriksen, Nis Ovesen
Author: Ohrt, Ann Merete; Raahauge, Kirsten Marie
Series: E&PDE
Institution: The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Design and Conservation
Section: Studio
Page(s): 278-283
ISBN: 978-1-904670-62-9
Abstract
The overall purpose of our research is to investigate young designers design processes and methods on
a global scale, by conducting a series of workshops at selected design universities in among others
Taiwan, China, Brazil, South Africa, India and Russia. The focus of the research project is to compare
and map cultural differences, similarities and preferences in young designers design approach in order
to understand how globalization and localization influence design. It is also the purpose to investigate
how different teaching methods influence the way the young designers understand the practice and
conceptions of design. In March 2015 we conducted our first workshop at the Shih Chien University in Taipei, Taiwan
(2015). The workshop focused on the “wunderkammer” as a work method and as an analytical
perspective. Museal as well as personal collections deal with objects as parts of wholes and of
principles of collecting (Pomian 1990; Raahauge 1997 & 2001; Stjernfelt 1993), one of them being the
Wunderkammer (Williams and Tsien 2013)), these perspectives have been at the core of our
workshop, as a didactical method and as a way to combine diverse aesthetic, empirical and intuitive
dimensions (Hansen 2014). The students were asked to create a “wunderkammer” of personal
collected images and things from their local environment and culture . The focus of the workshops is collecting and organizing objects from the studens visual explorations
within the following topics: body, home, urban space, identity, and cultural codes. The workshops are
documented, analysed and compared in order to get a better understanding of how, and if, different
universities’ learning methods and cultural backgrounds influence the students’ design approaches,
practices and conceptions. In this way we hope to broaden the importance of design and to gain
knowledge and understanding of how design is conceived, practiced and taught, furthermore we hope
to pave the way for discussions and exchange on these topics and perspectives between design
students and designers cross boundaries. The purpose of the mapping is to compile comparable data and propagate best practices from selected
design universities in order to both maintain and strengthen local differences in design practices and
perceptions but also to cross borders and find methods for collaborations within design praxis and
research. In the paper we will unfold the project and discuss how it might be discussed in the framework of
design education.
Keywords: Design concepts, design practices, design educations, globalisation, localisation, Wunderkammer