Beyond Discipline
Dr Lara Furniss (awarded 2020)
Supervisors; Dr Caroline Archer-Parré, Dr Lawrence Green
The study explores ongoing shifts in the practice of leading UK design agencies, and the implications of these for contemporary design pedagogy. It highlights a growing disconnection between design practice and education and teaching, and calls for a challenge to existing pedagogic models: the work also proposes alternative approaches to teaching and learning that better meet with progressive (and successful) trends in design. Via interviews and observation, primary ethnographic data was gathered within a selection of leading UK design agencies. This information was then used to assemble detailed case studies, and the latter provided a basis for a comparative case analysis. The analysis underpins the argument that design has moved beyond a disciplinary focus to an orientation that is founded on ‘purpose’. This shift has important implications: the thesis argues that practitioners and educators (and policymakers) need to work together to devise a new curriculum and approach, one that will prepare young designers to address successfully the challenges and opportunities of the twenty-first century.
