All the Intel on the Fall 2016 Collaborative Design Studios -test
my-test In the final year of the undergraduate programs at the College of Architecture and Design (CoAD), industrial design students, interior design students, digital design students and architecture students assemble in a collaborative design studio, tasked to work together—across disciplines—toward a common goal: to design our future.
Upon completion, they will have developed “an awareness of teamwork structures and dynamics, and gained an appreciation of the nature and value of collaborative practices,” says Martina Decker, assistant professor of architecture. “Interdisciplinary research and collaboration can offer valuable solutions for our society, especially in the face of global issues such as climate change.”
This fall, there are three collaborative design studios running wholly within The School of Art + Design (A+D): Expo Studio: Design on View (a combination of multimedia installments, interior exhibits and new products); Decker’s Science Fiction Studio; and the (Post) Productions Studio, which studies issues of sustainability. The New Jersey School of Architecture runs the fourth collaborative studio, China Solar Decathlon 2017.
“The School of Art + Design at NJIT is an extraordinary place to study and to grow; to listen and to engage in meaningful dialogue; to challenge oneself and the world,” says Glenn Goldman, the school's director. “It is a place where creativity thrives and design is practiced as a knowledge-based discipline; a place where students and faculty alike bring their considerable acumen and talents to the solving of problems.”
Here, we give you the scoop on the new fall 2016 design studios, where the cultivation of experiences, the construction of interactive realities, the redefinition of recycling, and the idea behind a double-decker solar powered house will come alive this semester—all under the umbrella of collaborative thinking.
“To build an experience requires the design consideration of the five senses,” says adjunct professor Ana Penalba, “and, therefore, the expertise of a multidisciplinary team.”
Science Fiction Studio
Assistant Professor Martina Decker
The Lowdown
A+D students form teams to create their own science fiction narratives, which one day may become our reality. The students will draw inspiration from scientific research and emergent technologies such as nantechnoloy, which offers the ability to design materials atom-by-atom and molecule-by-molecule. They will invent the characters and their surroundings for a utopian or dystopian future and tell their stories at the end of the semester.
Why now?
As designers, it is of great importance to have the ability to imagine possible futures. “In the pursuit of actively shaping the future we want to live in,” says Decker, “we have to be able to envision the possible scenarios that we would think of as favorable as well as the ones that are undesirable.”
Required Viewing
A portion of the course is devoted to the study of relevant literature, but students will also explore the science fiction genre through movies.
Field Trip!
A visit to New York Comic Con in October will afford the teams an invaluable opportunity for market research.
A Word from the Professor
“The Science Fiction Studio is an amazing opportunity for A+D students to interface with the STEM disciplines here on campus,” says Decker. “They can explore the new technologies and inventions that are currently being developed, and imagine their application in art and design.”
Expo Studio: Design on View
Lecturer Ersin Altin
The Lowdown
Four teams will design a pavilion for a country to form an imaginary exposition center. Each team will have one digital design, one industrial design and one interior design student who will collaborate on various aspects of the project, employing the skills and knowledge from their respective disciplines.
Burning Question
Can a design represent a culture or nation? “It seems people think it can,” says Altin, “but what makes it belong to a culture? Today’s world, dominated by multinational corporations, seemingly curtains the close connection of design to its cultural roots. In other words, design deliberately shies away from exposing its cultural and national implications because of global aspirations.”
Approach
Rather than answering questions with the readymade information packages, the course will help students to develop particular strategies to formulate their own questions. Students will learn how to find and use the knowledge needed to finalize their design tasks; locating and exploring relevant sources is one of the integrated requirements. There will be movie and documentary screenings, along with design analyses, articles and books.
For the Final Project
The pavilion can be imagined as a completely interactive platform supplemented by custom apps and informative objects, where the entire pavilion displays itself as a representation of a culture within the physical space of the exposition center. It can also be imagined as a more “traditional” pavilion with a series of products, and a mascot that represents the selected country.
A Word from the Professor
“The world we live in is not modest about providing information,” says Altin. “There is no difficulty in reaching knowledge. Finding and owning is not the primary problem anymore, thanks to the internet and all communication devices. Information, disinformation and misinformation—they are all around us, and they can be relevant to us depending on how you use them. This studio aims to inform about this fact and help the students to use what is relevant to their work.”
(POST) Productions Studio
Adjunct Professor Ana Penalba
The Lowdown
This studio’s main goal will be to highlight the importance of understanding the act of recycling as a concept that should not be applied exclusively to the recollection of goods, but also to the reuse of space, the redefinition of the collective imaginary and the repurpose of objects and technological devices.
Why Now?
In an era where the limits between production and consumption are blurred, it is necessary to develop a critical thinking to question and edit the value of the existing sources—either natural or manufactured—that need new reading to be included in a sustainable and productive cycle.
Takeaways
“I want students to understand their responsibility as designers and how the power of design affects the construction of our realities,” says Penalba. “During the semester the students will work together to build a collective inventory of experiential design cases. Each week a student will present one experiential design case and have concerns about how this topic is revolting the design field. Simultaneously, there will be readings and discussions related to this topic."
Field Trip!
If possible, the students will visit Six Flags and use the experience as their main source to design.
For the Final Project
Students will make groups of three people and design a new activity for the inhabitation of the proposed existing space. Digital designers will build the branding identity of the new space; industrial designers will be in charge of stating the design principles and characters of the objects, furniture and industrial devices; and interior designers will design the space principles for the new proposed program through the production of plans, elevations, renders and material selection.
A Word from the Professor
“The idea for this studio cooked slowly, and it happened thanks to the contribution of many of the A+D faculty members,” says Penalba. “Their talent, generosity and support have made possible what I look forward to initiate.”
Solar Decathlon 2017 Studio
Assistant Professor Adam Modesitt
The Lowdown
NJIT has partnered with FJUT (Fujian University of Technology) to successfully secure a place in the 2017 China Solar Decathlon competition. NJIT will lead the team, directing architecture, vision and design, while FJUT will provide engineering support and services. The competition pits NJIT against 21 other teams that represent over 45 universities, from over 10 different countries, and will culminate in summer 2017 with a constructed house built by each team in Dezhou, China.
Objective
The goal of the course is to establish a multidisciplinary setting driven by collaboration, with one foot in the academic world and one foot in the professional world. Students will engage in research, discussion, document production, and construction relating to energy efficiency, the life cycle of materials, environmental impact assessment, and sustainable/regenerative design theory and practice.
For the Final Project
Each team is required to design and build a single-family, double-decker, solar-powered house with the ground-projected area of 120-200 m2. Every house must be equipped with all the necessary solar-powered household appliances—TV, refrigerator, cooktop, dishwasher, washing machine, computer—and provide an electric vehicle as well as its charging device. The house’s cost feasibility, power efficiency, environment adaptability, power generation capacity, among other things, will be evaluated to determine the outcome of the competition.
A Word from the Professor
“The Solar Decathlon competition is an enormous design, logistics, communication and performance challenge,” says Modesitt. “The effort will involve multiple interdisciplinary studios and courses, drawing from NJIT’s architecture, interior design, industrial design and digital design departments, undergrad and graduate courses alike, as well resources and expertise from outside CoAD. Together, we will develop and build an innovative house and energy efficient design to compete vigorously against the best universities and colleges in the world.”
Collaborative study, broad exposure, stimulating ventures—visit design.njit.edu today to learn how CoAD can help you design your tomorrow.