I finally started writing – the tool kit for a new School of Design. A tool kit because a vision is so self aggarandising. Tool kit is so much more participative. For now the tool kit has three parts – a way to do a take on design.
1. The Agenda – which in this case is a social agenda. As against a technological agenda. A social agenda where design is a community engagement discourse. The BOP is one core context of practice – and ‘for the marginalised’ is the defining focus.
2. The Approach – which in this case is porous to allow in local practices of engagement. PRA re Chambers being one of them. I add to this a version of design process which is designed for long and slow projects. Design then is fundamentally not an expert discourse (with a quick fix and get away strategy) but a community involvement discourse. I situate a critique of the ‘Technology for the marginalised’ as a key way to think of the approach.
3. The Artefact – which is a way to define profesional specializations. For now I have ’social innovation’ and ’social enterpreneurhsip’. Then I have service design. The big question is how much of the conventional courses can one let in – and will they be a contaminant. Industrial design will eventually become egaged in the making of the sofa!
Will leave ths for a bit.
4 Comments
November 28, 2008 at 11:25 am
Cool! Will you be writing it publicly? (I mean here or on some project wiki or something)
It would be interesting to see it form and understand your process.
November 28, 2008 at 1:31 pm
This is a start Mark. In the middle of Dec I will post the ‘enterprise’ side to the school. This is like a business plan with plan of action. I have a group of 4 RMIT Business School work placement students firing away to produce the enterprise document.
This will leave me free to focus upon these three parts of the tool kit.
I am looking for an A word for the outcome focus. Artifact is what I was thinking. So will modify the post its map.
November 29, 2008 at 2:19 am
I like Artefact. There is also Article which has some value. I did a quick search and could not find many other words beginning with A that fit well.
I think the way an Article is both a thing and the description that makes or the discussion that leads to the thing is a bit interesting. I find my self using this word a lot as it is a relatively nondescript word which can refer to many different kinds of online output.
Is the development of the Enterprise section online somewhere?
November 29, 2008 at 5:16 am
Thats a few weeks away. But yes it will be online.