Design In Action

Design in action

UNISINOS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

UNISINOS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

Developing activities in graduation, research, post graduation and consultancy services, the school also promotes the strategic and economic innovation of several local productive sectors and values the territorial and cultural realities of Rio Grande do Sul. The Unisinos School of Design is also characterized by: Integration – articulation between Unisinos and companies, which brings concrete elements of the professional reality to students; Internationalization – insertion in the design world context through the appropriation and transferring of the results of the influence o Poli.Design together with the tradition and experience in superior education of Unisinos; Innovation – a way of introducing creativity and the culture of project as a “engine” for innovation in society.

Design Center

• The Design Center is a research and development Center in design. Its objective is to divulge the culture of design through the transferring of knowledge resulting from applied research to the entrepreneurial world and society. At the design center, experience turns into knowledge, shared with graduate and post graduate students in a daily basis.

• In this environment, the relationship between EDU and companies is established and the exchange happens in different levels. Today the Design Center offers to companies a partnership with the under graduation course through design studio activities, with the graduation courses through workshop activities. It is important to highlight in this process the practice for the classroom and the bringing of academic knowledge to the world of design, be it industrial, commercial, service or institutional design.

Design Center

• A clear example of this kind of relationship is the “Coza Case” which allowed students and professors to go through a rich experience by being in contact with managers of an important company in the home appliances industry. The experience resulted in the development of a product with the signatures COZA + EDU.

• The most audacious level of relationship between Companies and EDU is established through consultancies in Strategic Design. Multidisciplinary teams, researchers, students, and collaborators of the Design Center offer to the productive world innovative and design oriented solutions in design. Its international connection turns it into a part of a system in constant up-to-dating, allowing students, researchers, professors, collaborators and partners to be prepared to face the world market.

Under graduation

• The course carries the values of the School of Design: Integration, internationalization, and innovation. This means that, each semester, students are encouraged to respond to the demands of a company, trying to integrate academic knowledge and the real needs of a business reality. It also means that lecturers and professors with academic formation in foreign institutions will discuss cases and themes currently discussed internationally in specific activities of the learning programs. At last, the course is developed from the point of view of design as an “engine” for innovation in society and companies.

Under graduation

• The course tries to create technical and artistic solutions recognized by society with an ethical posture engaged with the idea of economic and environmental sustainability. The integrated vision of different areas of knowledge that form the design culture is brought to the course, related to the concept of strategic design. It will also work with research and other actions of the Design School and the community. The idea is to allow for an approximation with companies and social practices in order to be able to have real life experiences to stimulate the thinking about the design processes and actors. Students will be able to get closer to their future work market, adding to their formation a concrete knowledge on project design.

Master Degree in Design

• The Master course in design is characterized as a link between scientific research and its application in business. It is constituted by a transdisciplinary group of researchers and perceives design as a discipline developed at the interface of different areas such as communication, marketing, business administration, engineering, and architecture. In this context, design activities are developed considering the concept of strategic design, constructing product, service, and experience projects applied to organizations or territories. It is important to have in mind that the element that distinguishes the course is the constant search for an approximation between the knowledge produced or yet to be produced by researchers and the demands from organizations. This process of articulation between the academic world, society, and market is important as distinction and responds directly to the core of the concept of strategic design. In the undergraduate context, the master course represents an important place for scientific initiation of students through applied research projects.

Graduation in Strategic Design

• The graduation Course in Strategic Design is also a partnership with POLI.DESIGN, Consorzio del Politecnico di Milano and its aim is to form professionals with an innovative view of design, perceiving the process of design as strategic for the organizational and environmental development and sustainability. A group of professors from POLI.Design and Unisinos was defined to operate the course taking into account the different competencies from each school. During the course, besides getting to know different aspects related to design, the students participate in practical activities aiming to solve specific problems of a previously defined company. They also have a final work/paper applied to an organization in which they the concept of system-product developed during the course.

Graduation in Graphic Design

• The Graduation Course in Graphic Design – Visual Identity of the System-product is a partnership with POLI.DESIGN, Consorzio del Politecnico di Milano and its aim is to form professionals with an innovative view of graphic design as an area on the border between design, communication, graphic expression, art, and culture, but also keeps a straight relation to individual and organizational strategies that see innovation as an element that adds value to products, services, territories and other objects resulting from the design process. The course focuses on the creation of Visual Identities of the system- product and its possible applications. The course stands for an entrepreneurial vision and for an organizational and environmental sustainability. During the course, besides getting to know different aspects related to graphic design, the students participate in practical activities aiming to solve specific problems of a previously defined company.

DESIGN STUDIO, LEARNING PROGRAM

• In 2002 Unisinos decided to rethink its under graduation courses and create distinguishable courses, called at first under graduation of reference and later new graduation. The New Under graduation is the result of the university move towards the building of a new pedagogical and epistemological paradigm for undergraduate teaching. Therefore, these courses are formed by Learning Programs, which are articulated networks of knowledge considering different areas of knowledge aiming a transdisciplinary view of learning.


• This way the curriculum is capable of developing the skills and competences required for the future professional instead of centering in conceptual content. In order to do so, the methodologies for teaching and learning focused in learning projects, case studies, design studio, laboratories, workshops, and lectures. The learning evaluation is processual, continued and formative, and involves assessments and the monitoring to reorient paths, to overcome perceived difficulties, and to impulse the development.


• In 2006, the under graduation course in Design was created within this paradigm, with a curriculum structured by Learning Programs (PA – Programa de Aprendizagem) that relate to each other during the whole formation course, “understood as spaces where different personal an academic life experiences and areas of knowledge are articulated through the used methodologies”.

• The organization of the Learning Programs took into consideration not only specific knowledge but also the social and professional context of the design profession. The activities of a PA (Learning Program) are based in the integration of various academic activities that are articulated around a topic chosen by the academic community in the beginning of each semester as a transdisciplinary view proposition.


• In 2006, the under graduation course in Design was created within this paradigm, with a curriculum structured by Learning Programs (PA – Programa de Aprendizagem) that relate to each other during the whole formation course, “understood as spaces where different personal an academic life experiences and areas of knowledge are articulated through the used methodologies”.

• The organization of the Learning Programs took into consideration not only specific knowledge but also the social and professional context of the design profession. The activities of a PA (Learning Program) are based in the integration of various academic activities that are articulated around a topic chosen by the academic community in the beginning of each semester as a transdisciplinary view proposition.


• Each program, with duration of one semester, has its own coordinator who, through meetings taking place at every two weeks with the group of professors, proposes discussions to promote the integration of the different areas, always aware of the potentialities and characteristics of each class and of the demands from the professional context.

• The programs are distributed in a crescent degree of complexity and difficulty of content, but being capable to adapt to new information or circumstances as necessary. The developed methodologies take into account the learning processes of each student, and are carried out in a cooperative manner, trying to promote intellectual autonomy with the intent to form qualified people capable to face the work market and aware of the reality they will be part of.


• The design studio is the main place of articulation between theory and practice for students, and it is also the structuring element of the course and the Learning Programs. The design studio, coordinated by professors who are also well-known design professionals, introduces a new scientific academic vision about the design process, observing an increasing degree of complexity in the competences acquired by students.

• The innovative pedagogical proposal allows a transdisciplinary view about the projects developed in the design studios, promoting integration with the market by inviting Companies to be partners in the activities carried out by students.


• Each partner company in the program brings a vision of its segment and market, turning the design studio experience even richer. According to the defined topic, the students, organized in groups, follow a project methodology, divided in stages, trying to improve along the semester according to the characteristics of the current Learning Program (PA).

• The design studio subjects, from PA1 to PA5, seek for differentiated project experimentations, increasing their complexity as the student advances in the course. In all those experiences the student visits the company, learns about the production process and the different materials used, listen to client’s considerations about his/her project and is encouraged to develop volumetric study mock-ups, participating in the whole design process of development of a system-product, be it an object, a furniture piece, an environment for experiences or an identity.


• Through this approach, the students are offered the opportunity to have a relevant contact with the market as the projects developed by students can actually be produced by the client. The company, in turn, by getting closer to the University, can play a formation role in the developing of a new professional, contributing for the qualification of the creative working force in the design markets of Brazil and Rio Grande do Sul.

• Various activities related to the humanistic, artistic, and technical areas are integrated and complement the design studio. They are shared by students in a Learning Program according to the specificities of each semester. The student can also follow a particular path by taking complementary academic activities according to his/her interest.

CULTURE AND DESIGN, THE FORMATION OF THE UNISINOS SCHOOL OF DESIGN

“reading you do in your fingersnot in the eyes

the eyes are inclinedto secrets”

Paulo Leminski in “the ex-trange”,1996.


1. What is design made of?• Professor Francesco Zurlo, in a quick inaugural text from EDU project,

placed design at the ‘problem-word’ zone, a category of open concepts difficult to be captured by a precise definition.

• Design, immemorial human activity, deals with the power we develop of formalizing social aspirations. It is part of constructive actions of civilizations, first to supply us with the instruments and tools to deal with the world, then giving us a code of communication established through things. It lives therefore between objectivity and dream.

• When crossing such a complex area, design places itself as a meditation and synthesis activity. It is nourished by various knowledge that, processed through its project culture, will result in thing-answers, with form, function, value, and, if capable of culturally spreading, with meanings. Design is made of culture.

• “creativity is fundamental in design, assuming we understand the concept of design as method – that even free as fantasy – is precise as the [method] of invention.”

• Bruno Munari, 1977.


2- How design acts?• If culture is the raw material of design, project culture is the way it

handles this raw material. Project culture is a capacity developed by man: it is a sense of action, a way of establishing an objective look towards what doesn’t exist yet. As defined by Vilém Flusser, “…it is the union territory for theory and practice.”

• Design acts on knowledge and therefore on society, reflecting on this society. Project culture must account for the occurring changes, must understand new values, so design can continue making sense, and creating new meanings.

• Design acts through this project capacity, between creativity and method, being capable of showing events that does not exist yet.

• “this thing of understanding something, one has to love. love creates a capacity, you get interested. you learn to see/look”

• tom jobim in “mundo, mondo, monde”


2- How design acts?• If culture is the raw material of design, project culture is the way it

handles this raw material. Project culture is a capacity developed by man: it is a sense of action, a way of establishing an objective look towards what doesn’t exist yet. As defined by Vilém Flusser, “…it is the union territory for theory and practice.”

• Design acts on knowledge and therefore on society, reflecting on this society. Project culture must account for the occurring changes, must understand new values, so design can continue making sense, and creating new meanings.

• Design acts through this project capacity, between creativity and method, being capable of showing events that does not exist yet.

• “this thing of understanding something, one has to love. love creates a capacity, you get interested. you learn to see/look”

• tom jobim in “mundo, mondo, monde”


3. A design school?• Enzo Mari, the great Italian designer, says that it is an illusion the attempt to

give form to something without understanding the reason. The Unisinos School of Design was just an idea when we starting to work there.

• Why one more school of design? How can it contribute for the production and divulging of culture? How can it affect society? What difference will it make?

• It s the result of the encounter between Unisinos and Poli.design, Consorzio del Politécnico di Milano, and above all, the result of a project for the construction of its meaning.

• This construction demanded a lot of work• The confrontation of knowledge between diverse worlds, the sum of

capacities, the understanding of national and regional contexts, our culture, and our project culture, the analysis about Porto Alegre…

• Months of research and synthesis to finally come up with a school project that aims to fabricate innovation, starting from its own establishing: to be a ‘research school’ focused on design oriented innovation.


3. A design school?• Having projected the meaning, we built a school that understands design as

a cultural agent: it wants to produce knowledge but also wants to spread it.• Constantly up-to-dating design, seeking new sources, other mixtures,

discussing its methods, up-to-dating techniques and broadening the scope. • Propose new powers to design.• Spread these powers as design culture, helping to create a design culture,

generating knowledge capable of turning itself into value, developing design in the shape of well-being to society.

• “To me, design is a form of discussing life. It is a form of discussing society, politics, eroticism, food, and even design. It is a form of building something, of projecting a possible figurative utopia or a metaphor for life. Of course, to me design is not limited to the need of giving more or less form to a product made by industry.

• If you need to teach something about design, first of all you need to teach something about life, insisting that technology is also a metaphor for life”…

• If something will save is, it is beauty.• Ettore Sottsass, Milan 2004.


In the end design is everything: it is a metaphor for life!

“To know, to know how to do and to know how to be” is what we have to teach, said professor Flaviano Celaschi in one of his many lectures about the future of EDU. The Unisinos School of Design was born from a design project, made of different knowledge and competences, of methods and techniques, but mainly of people, care and dedication. The same dedication animated by a designer passion that creates, models, dreams and executes. EDU knows that design lives through love, sweat and beauty. That is the difference!