Course Objectives

• Above everything else this studio is going to be about doing. The way in which design is learned is through experiencing; through the carrying out of a process. The instructor’s role in the studio is more of guide than teacher. It’s more Socratic (responsive) than Aristotelian (indoctrinal) and that means that this course is going to be fueled by your questions and constant questioning. In design we question by working. This is called Practice.

• The other thing the studio will focus on is understanding what it is that we’ve done. The way in which understanding the design (a noun rather than a verb) is learned is by another direction of questioning: the development of a discourse. The Socratic process is reversed here and the instructor will ask the questions. It’s like jeopardy: the instructor gives the answer and the student looks to find the question in the work. Once the student is aware of the question the work becomes “Informed.” The work invokes discourse and the more informed the work, the higher the level of the discourse. Discursive questioning of the work is called Theory.
We’ll come back to talk about discourse at a later date.