Research & Education in Design: People & Processes & Products & Philosophy

Design is about the creation of meaningful connections to solve problems and advance human wellbeing; the discipline has always explored the beneficial links between form and function, technology and meaning, beauty and utility, people and artefacts and problems and solutions, among others. This book focuses on the crucial connection between design research and design education. Contemporary society grows increasingly hyper-complex and globally competitive. This state of affairs raises fundamental questions for both Design Education and Design Research: Should research skills be integrated into undergraduate courses? How can we modify design courses without compromising the positive aspects of the educational studio experience? Can the three cycles of higher education in design be combined into a creative and inquisitive educational continuum?To examine the relationship between research and education in Design we must address the topic of knowledge, keeping in mind that the development and dissemination of new and useful knowledge is the core purpose of a University. If we agree that design has its own things to know and ways to find out about them, then design knowledge resides in people, processes, products, and philosophy. This book explores the intersection of these four areas with the aim of uncovering insights to advance the current state of the design discipline.

1. Rita Almendra is a designer and an Associate Professor with Aggregation at the Faculty of Architecture ULisbon. She is the director of the Design Department, coordinator of CIAUD’s Design group and member of the Scientific Council of FA ULisbon. She has an MBA in management with a marketing specialization from the FCEE at Catholic University of Lisbon. Her Master in Design Management was supervised by Prof. Charles Waldman from INSEAD. She lectures at the Undergraduation, Master and PhD Programs several courses in the areas of Theory and Critics, Design Studio, Sustainable Design and Design Management. She supervised more than 60 master dissertations and 20 PhD Thesis with topics related with her research interest, such as Design Education and Research, Social Design, Design for Sustainability and Inclusion; Design Cognition, Design Management. Rita published more than 70 papers and several book chapters.2. João holds a PhD in Design from the Delft University of Technology; his doctoral research focussed on teacher-student communication in the design studio setting. João also has a master’s degree in communication design from the Lisbon School of Architecture, Universidade de Lisboa. He was involved in the development of the Retail Design specialisation in both the design and architecture schools of the University of Delft, where he was an assistant and lecturer. João’s main research interest is design education, namely how teacher-student one-on-one interaction unfolds in the design studio, how to prepare design students for high-level meta-cognitive performance, the development of grounded design theory, and also academic writing best practices. João occasionally works as a freelancer in communication design projects.