The Design Environment/Culture Module

August was when it all really began.. All the planning, creating the curriculum, reworking details, dates, assignments was going play itself out, have a life of its own. Creating is magical in itself but, once a product starts to function and make meaning in everyday life - its satisfying. Maybe satisfaction is key to ones performance and sometimes simple things like students enjoying a class is enough. Enough to keep a teacher motivated.

Well, this post was going to be about the module I have begun to teach - so lets get back to that! Falling in an area of Praxis and yet being rooted in theory, its not an easy subject for foundation students to grasp. The general notion that doing design involves no studying of text books doesn't help either.

Design Environment is all about understanding the evolution of design through the theory and practice of design; by exploring context set in various cultures, aesthetics, socio-political, economic, environmental conditions.

So I thought of beginning the class from the idea of the self and then moving onto society. Class was all about expressing the idea of the self through words and then ideas that mattered in their lives through drawings. It culminated in an essay of 500 words on and person/object/place/idea that they cared about.

The writings were insightful, moving, truthful and innocent. What joy!