Education Through Design

Perth, Western Australia claims to be the most remote capital city in the world. Miles and oceans away from other major cities, Perth did, in fact, feel remote after twenty-four hours of travel from the U.S. to get there. However, jet lag aside, Perth also proved to be a welcome location for the recent Re-Inventing Design Education in the University conference. Sunshine and 95-degree F. temperatures greeted pale, semifrozen, weary design educators for three days of exchange, discussion, debate, and reunion. Design education has embarked upon many new frontiers over the past few years. New technology, the Internet, and digital culture, to name a few, have had a head-spinning effect on what we teach and how we teach it. But beyond all the digital demands, what is the place of learning and knowledge in design education? What sort of models will design education need in the future to address these and other issues? The Re-Inventing Design Education in the University conference set out to examine topics such as collaboration, research, learning, and knowledge for design within the ever more relevant university setting. The international conference was hosted by the Curtain University of Technology School of Design, and was proudly organized by Professor Cal Swann-an event also significant because of his retirement in the days following the conference. With just under one-hundred delegates attending, the conference joined together educators from the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, the UK, Scotland, Turkey, Germany, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, South Africa, and all over Australia.