Required in stage
Optional in stage
First term
Second term
Both terms
Not organised
This year
Next year
Alternating years
External
Prerequisites
Taught by
Language of instruction
Duration
Identical coursesDesign Thinking and Making (B-KUL-H0H29A)
Cannot be taken as part of an examination contractAims
The course aims to establish proficiency with fundamental strategies that designers use during the process of designing to solve problems and/or create innovations. It is based around the idea that design makes ideas tangible so that they can be understood and evaluated before commuting them to reality.
Upon the completion of this course, the student is able to:
• Understand the process of designing as a combination of analytical and synthetic processes that lead to explorative experiments in order to solve salient, sometimes contradictory and confounding, aspects of wicked problems.
• Use a design thinking process to generate and test user-driven innovation, including the gathering of inspiration, the generation of ideas, the rapid prototyping of these ideas in tangible forms, their critical evaluation and their persuasive communication to the outside world.
• Use the constructive process of hands-on, material creation as a method of critical inquiry alongside that of linguistic-oriented methods.
• Use basic analogue and digital design methods and tools, including rapid prototyping and digital fabrication.
• Follow a design thinking process to creatively approach a self-initiated problem statement that is relevant to a contemporary cultural or social context.
Previous knowledge
To undertake this course successfully, the student should have acquired a “designerly way of thinking” by means of his/her first Master/ 5year Bachelor Degree.
Is included in these courses of study
Activities
4 ects. Design Thinking and Making: Lecture (B-KUL-G0D19a)
Content
This course provides a hands-on introduction to the practice and research of design thinking and critical making. It is mainly structured as a studio-driven class with time devoted to lecture, discussion, practice sessions, prototype fabrication, critiques and discussions.
The student will engage with design thinking and critical making concepts through:
• Understanding and presenting relevant readings during class presentations
• Analysing and critiquing existing designs (e.g. interface, object)
• Iteratively making, reflecting upon and presenting the results of their own design thinking process within the context of a self-initiated problem statement;
• Actively and collaboratively discussing and critiquing the iterative progress of all of the above.
The student is expected to maintain a personal design diary during the course, which documents all related information to one’s own design thinking process, including the content of the design critiques of one’s own work. It is explicitly expected that the student iteratively reflects on the critical points of one’s own design, and iteratively syntheses results that respond to these points.
Course material
• Slides, explaining the design thinking process, made available via Toledo.
• Readings, consisting of selection of influential papers, book chapters and documentations, made available via Toledo.
• Tutorials on the use of relevant methods and tools, made available via Toledo.
Is also included in other courses
Evaluation
Evaluation: Design Thinking and Making (B-KUL-H2H29a)
Explanation
Permanent evaluation, consisting of:
- Knowledge and practice acquisition (20%): the reading presentation, the design critiques, the acquisition of technical and designer skills, …
- Design process (20%): the interactions and participations in class as well as online; the critical, iterative and explorative progression of the design and making process; the intermediate design presentations, …
- End result (60%): the final prototype, which consist of: a) the hedonic, physical or artistic, and technical qualities of final product itself in response to the intended functional or artistic design requirements; b) a complete documentation of the design and learning process, including its grounding in the current state of knowledge and practice; and c) its public presentation and oral defense.
Inherently to the design thinking process, the process of designing and making is at least as important as the final end result. Final end results might well ‘fail’, in so far that the reasoning around their failing contribute to the generalizable production of knowledge.
The student must obtain at least 7/20 on each of the three components. If not, the maximum final score will be 9/20.
Information about retaking exams
Students are expected to independently rectify parts of the course that were insufficient, and/or continue working on their design project. The submission and/or presentation of these results must be accompanied of a detailed documentation clearly demonstrating the personal contributions.