Making is Thinking: Emphasizing Inquiry Through Technique in the Beginning Design Studio

A student’s first design studio can be particularly challenging as the creative learning that takes place in the studio is frequently at odds with the less explorative format of more traditional education. However, the freedom to explore is also frequently met with confusion, as students at this early stage are not yet accustomed to solving problems without a set methodology to follow and therefore certain methods are necessary to excite the act of making. This paper describes a focused series of exercises that build on the skills learned in the first year, but transitions from skills to intention by employing the idea of technique as inquiry through applied skill. A series of daily and frequently intense assignments were given in which the students were required to apply a method of inquiry through specific operations to a series of original artifacts, first in the form of drawings and then ultimately leading to three dimensions. Inquiry was presented not as a function of thinking then doing, but thinking through doing. In this way, technique and inquiry are not mutually exclusive, but correlated. In the context of this design studio, we presented skill as the methods used to represent ideas, such as sketching, drafting, and model making. Technique is applied skill with purpose in this way, technique doesn't answer, "what I am trying to do?" but begs the question "what/why/how are you doing this?" Our assertion in the design of the projects for this studio is that skill could be taught through technique, and that by giving projects where the students could understand what influence a particular technique could have on the forms being created, they would be more engaged in the understanding of technique, as applied skill, as a vehicle for exploration, and not just a means in and of itself. The emphasis of process has clear roots in the early modern movement, and yet continues to be prevalent today. As is well known, Wassily Kandisnky, in his basic course for the Bauhaus, sought to develop a student’s critical eye through the application of techniques of drawing and