Design Making: A study of architectural sites, state transitions, and learning

The aim of this study is to support the design of academic maker spaces. Observations are made of a make-based introduction to design course for first year university students. Activity state transitions, architectural sites, learning outcomes and their relationships are recorded. A Markov chain, state transition modelling approach is used to capture the sequences of activities undergone by 329 student-designer participants during the prototyping segment of the design course. Several field surveys were conducted along with site analysis to support the study. The first survey identifies key features students look for in the architectural design and affordance of maker spaces. Then key sites used in the course are evaluated for these features. Finally, a pre- and post- survey was implemented to determine correlations between site, activity, and learning outcome. Reported results include: a finite state machine (or probabilistic model of student making activity state transitions); simplified architectural site analyses of key facilities; preferences for site based on activity; and lastly observed correlations between activities, sites and learning outcomes.

[1]  I. Sam Saguy,et al.  Academia-Industry Interaction in Innovation: Paradigm Shifts and Avenues for the Future , 2013 .

[2]  Albert Gore,et al.  Technology For America'S Growth , 1993 .

[3]  Anil Gurung,et al.  Makers: The New Industrial Revolution , 2014 .

[4]  Daniel D. Frey,et al.  Designettes: An Approach to Multidisciplinary Engineering Design Education , 2016 .

[5]  Kristin L. Wood,et al.  Principles of maker and DIY fabrication: Enabling design prototypes at low cost , 2018, Design Studies.

[6]  Christopher McComb,et al.  Design Strategy Transfer in Cognitively-Inspired Agents , 2018, Volume 2A: 44th Design Automation Conference.

[7]  Peter Green,et al.  Markov chain Monte Carlo in Practice , 1996 .

[8]  Christopher McComb,et al.  Lifting the Veil: Drawing insights about design teams from a cognitively-inspired computational model , 2015 .

[9]  Erica Halverson,et al.  The Maker Movement in Education , 2014, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education.

[10]  Ezio Manzini,et al.  Making Things Happen: Social Innovation and Design , 2014, Design Issues.

[11]  James Gopsill,et al.  EXAMINING THE SOLUTION BIAS OF CONSTRUCTION KITS , 2018 .

[12]  Julie S. Linsey,et al.  Physical Models and Design Thinking: A Study of Functionality, Novelty and Variety of Ideas. , 2012 .

[13]  Kristin L. Wood,et al.  Integrated 2D Design in the Curriculum: Effectiveness of Early Cross-Subject Engineering Challenges , 2014 .

[14]  Christopher McComb,et al.  “Thus, I Had to Go With What I Had”: A Multiple Methods Exploration of Novice Designers’ Articulation of Prototyping Decisions , 2018 .

[15]  Wendy Salmond,et al.  A Matter of Give and Take: Peasant Crafts and Their Revival in Late Imperial Russia , 1997 .

[16]  U-Xuan Tan,et al.  INTERDISCIPLINARY LEARNING THROUGH DESIGN ACTIVITIES UNITING FUNDAMENTALS OF ENGINEERING CURRICULUM , 2015 .

[17]  Lucienne Blessing,et al.  A design case study: Transferring design processes and prototyping principles into industry for rapid response and user impact , 2017 .

[18]  Albert Gore,et al.  Technology for America's Economic Growth, a New Direction to Build Economic Strength , 1993 .

[19]  Cassandra Telenko,et al.  Designettes: New Approaches to Multidisciplinary Engineering Design Education , 2014 .

[20]  Jessica Menold,et al.  Prototyping Canvas: Design Tool for Planning Purposeful Prototypes , 2019, Proceedings of the Design Society: International Conference on Engineering Design.

[21]  Kristin L. Wood,et al.  The Way Makers Prototype: Principles of DIY Design , 2015 .

[22]  Kevin Otto,et al.  A Systematic Method for Design Prototyping , 2015 .

[23]  Julie Linsey,et al.  “A Makerspace Is More Than Just a Room Full of Tools”: What Learning Looks Like for Female Students in Makerspaces , 2018, Volume 7: 30th International Conference on Design Theory and Methodology.

[24]  Oliver Vodeb,et al.  Social Innovation and Design Education: Towards a Socially Responsive Communication Design Pedagogy , 2015 .