Parallel Content: Social Science and the Design Curriculum

Introduction Current concerns about the education of designers coincide with broader issues in the curricular content of professional education in general. Design educators, and those responsible for other professional programs, have begun to focus on the liberal arts component of undergraduate education. These educators share both a growing appreciation for the role of the liberal arts in professional development and a concern with strategies for integrating them into the curriculum.3 Design education today includes those studies that focus on "complex systems or environments for living, playing, working, and learning."4 Such education must find common ground between the technical training and the liberal arts component of design curricula. Among the liberal arts, the social sciences, in particular, can help establish this common ground in undergraduate education by expanding the basis of the future designer's professional expertise. This paper will argue that the social sciences can contribute to professional expertise, thus enabling designers to play a more active decision-making role in the design project. Playing a more active role requires an increased professional competence that involves not only technical know-how but also knowledge of the social causes and consequences of design. The crucial question is how to ensure that the social sciences are meaningfully integrated into the undergraduate education of design students. We will first discuss the role of the social sciences in professional programs, then offer a model for developing a core curriculum that establishes a relationship between social science subject matter and interior design courses. In conclusion, we will present an interior design curriculum based on the parallel content concept, which will provide examples of how the social sciences can help inform design practice.