Explores the reciprocal relationships among design, science, and technology across scales. Covers a wide range of topics from visualization, fabrication, computation, material ecology, interaction, architecture, to games and performance. Examines how transformations in science and technology have influenced design thinking and vice versa. Students collaborate on interdisciplinary design projects and creative opportunities. Additional work is required of students taking the graduate version of the course.

 

N. Oxman, J. M. Yoon

 

Inspired by Charles and Ray Eames’ canonical “Powers of Ten,” the course explores the relationship between disciplines through the lens of Design. It examines how transformations in science and technology have influenced design thinking and vice versa. It offers interdisciplinary tools and methods to represent, model, design and fabricate objects and systems across physical, economical and social scales. Structured as core lectures and labs, the course is organized by “systems” such as Design of Information, Design of Fabrication, Design of Intelligence, Design of Play and Design of Innovation. Leaders in the fields of Design, Computer Science, Material Science, and Mechanical Engineering will contribute through guest lectures. We will learn design tools - digital and analog; we will develop design methods - disciplinary and anti-disciplinary and we will design things - material and immaterial.

The course creates a new pedagogical paradigm for education, which cuts across various disciplines and scales, to demonstrate that Design is not a Discipline but a way of looking at the world that promotes the synthesis of interdisciplinary knowledge across scales in order to create objects and systems for the greater good. This is partly due to the fact that such challenges – such as the race to cure cancer, the mars landing mission and the challenge to design sustainable cities and buildings – require, perhaps more than ever, an interdisciplinary skill set and an ability to operate across multiple scales with creativity.

 

The history of design innovation provides endless examples of cross disciplinary individuals and innovations.  Buckminster Fuller, for instance, was a designer, a futurist, an inventor, an author and a systems theorist. His designs based on the geodesic dome has inspired not only generations of designers, architects, engineers and urban planners but also chemists, material scientists and physicists who were inspired by his representation of the physical world.  Charles and Ray Eames were mid-century American designers working at a range of scales and in a variety of media, from furniture and military aircraft parts to films and exhibitions. Their experiments in design fabrication, and cultural media are a useful reference for design education today.  An example of the value of learning across disciplines today is found in Siddhartha Mukherjee’s book, Emperor of All Maladies: a Biography of Cancer, which tells the story of how the process of inventing cell dyes to trace the growth of cancerous tissues was actually inspired by textile design. 

 

Design has expanded to include a broad range of scales and disciplines, shifting from the production of objects to the design of experiences, data, networks, territories, and social frameworks. Designers are no longer exclusively committed to design autonomous objects (buildings, cars, furniture and household products), but rather are conceiving and testing whole ecologies of design experiences (robotic construction systems, transportation systems, health care experiences, water distribution, and clean energy). This has prompted Tim Brown, CEO of the design consultancy firm IDEO to state, “Design is too important to be left to designers.” The scope of design ecologies is so broad and so integrated with other disciplines that traditionally trained designers are ill equipped to tackle the new breadth of design tasks at hand. Interdisciplinary teams must work together to design the systems, experiences, environments and futures for our increasingly complex world.

 

Design Across Scales, Disciplines and Problem Contexts responds to this challenge by creating a course that is not a traditional design course for designers, but a design course about culture, science and technology to serve as a foundation for all students regardless of major.

 

 

Attendance to Lectures and Labs are required.  Those who can demonstrate advanced ability in topics for the Lab sessions may be excused with the permission of the Lab TA. However, First Lab Session (2/5/14) is required for all students. Readings are recommended but not required. 

 

For Undergraduates, the final grade is distributed as follows:

Class Participation- 25%; Assignment 1-  25%; Assignment 2-  25%; Assignment 3- 25%

 

For Graduate students, the final grade is distributed as follows:

Class Participation- 20%; Assignment 1-  20%; Assignment 2- 20%; Assignment 3- 20%; Assignment 4- 20%

 

 

 

                                      Recommended Readings:

                                      Architecture. Grey Room. (2001): 7-29.

                                      Paola Antonelli, et. al., Design and the Elastic Mind. New York: Museum of

                                      Modern Art; London: Thames & Hudson, 2008.Top of Form

                                      Morrison, Philip, and Phylis Morrison. Powers of Ten: A Book About the

                                      Relative Size of Things in the Universe and the Effect of Adding Another Zero.

                                      Redding, Conn: Scientific American Library, 1982.Top of Form

 

                                       ***First Lab Session Required for All Students

                                      Image Processing and Illustration

                                      Filming and Photography

                                      Basic 2D Representation and Editing

                                      Portfolio Skills

 

 

                                      Issue Assignment 1: Design a Representational System

 

                                      Recommended Readings:

                                      Daston, Lorraine, and Peter Galison. Objectivity. New York: Zone Books, 2007.

                                      Maeda, John. The Laws of Simplicity. The MIT Press, © 2006.Books24x7.

                                      Web. Feb. 1, 2013.                                                       

                                      McLuhan, Marshall. “The Medium is the Message”. Understanding Media: The

                                      Extensions of Man. New York: Signet, 1964.

                                      Tufte, Edward. Envisioning Information. Cheshire, CN: Graphics Press, 1990.

 

                                      3-D for Beginners: Introduction to computer modeling

                                      3-D for Advanced: Parametrics/ Grasshopper (Assumes Rhino 3D Skills)

                                   

 

                                       Conveying messages with Graphics. Choosing the right Graph for the right data.

                                       Data-Ink ratio Optimization. Overview of Processing and useful Resources.

 

 

                                      Guest Speakers:          

                                      James Grady and Mark Schifferli, Fathom

                                      Carl Lostritto, Assistant Professor, RISD

 

                                      Recommended Readings:

                                      Maeda, John. Creative Code. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004.

                                      Reas, Casey, and Ben Fry. Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual

                                      Designers and Artists. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2007.

                                      Fry, Ben. Visualizing Data. Beijing: O'Reilly Media, Inc, 2008.

                                   

                                       Autocad/Rhino 2d to Laser cutting, water-jet cutting, routing.

 

                                       Computation, Big Data, and Media                                          

                                   

                                      Guest Speakers:          

                                      Leila Kinney, Ex. Director of Arts Initiatives, MIT CAST

                                      Prof. Cesar Hidalgo, Macro Connections Group at Media Lab

                                      Ben Rubin, EAR Studio

                                   

 

                                      Design a Representational System

 

 

                                      Tools, Technique and Technologies

 

                                      Issue Assignment 2: Design Something that Helps you Make Something

 

                                      Recommended Readings:

                                      Aranda, Benjamin, and Chris Lasch. Tooling. New York: Princeton Architectural

                                      Press, 2006.

                                      Giedion, Sigfried. Mechanization Takes Command, a Contribution to Anonymous

                                      History. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1948.

                                      Sakamoto, Tomoko, and Albert Ferré. From Control to Design:

                                      Parametric/Algorithmic Architecture. Barcelona: Actar-D, 2008.

 

                                      2D/3D milling, 3D Printing, Casting and Molding, Thermoforming

 

 

 

 

                                      Guest Speakers:

                                      Prof. Sang bae Kim, Mechanical Engineering/ Robotics, MIT

                                      Prof. Skylar Tibbits, Director of Self Assembly Lab, MIT

 

                                      Recommended Readings:

                                      Pearce, Peter. Structure in Nature Is a Strategy for Design. Cambridge: MIT

                                      Press, 1978.

                                      Ball, Philip. Nature's Patterns: A Tapestry in Three Parts. Oxford: Oxford

                                      University Press, 2009.

 

 

                                      Introduction to basic robotic tools including actuators (servos/steppers),

                                      microcontrollers (arduino), and sensors. Demonstration of KUKA robotic arm and

                                      more advanced robotic controls.

 

                                      Games and constructs

 

                                      Guest Speaker:

                                      Professor Kevin Slavin, Playful Systems Group Media Lab

                                      

                                      Recommended Readings:

                                      Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Boston:

                                      Beacon Press, 1955.

                                      Galloway, Alexander R. Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture. Minneapolis:  

                                      University of Minnesota Press, 2006.

                                      Walker, Rob. “An Interview with Kevin Slavin.” Design Observer. 10 Oct. 2011.

 

 

                               

                                      Issue Assignment 3: Design a Game

 

 

                                      Learning observation techniques for investigating user needs/wants and finding

                                      ideas based on user interactions. Real-world activities based around quantifying

                                      interactions with a focus on game design.

 

 

 

                                      Bringing needs/wants and interactions from the observation session and

                                      transforming them into ideas for game design using a series of brainstorming

                                      techniques. Activities around creativity as a skill and use for developing design

                                      ideas.

 

                                      GRADUATE ASSIGNMENT DUE

 

                                   

                                      Guest Speaker:

                                      Professor Patrick Winston, Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science MIT

                        

                                      Recommended Readings:

                                      Minsky, Marvin L. The Society of Mind. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986. 

                                      Winston, Patrick Henry.  Artificial Intelligence. Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley

                                      Pub. Co.,1992.

                                      Wiener, Norbert. Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and

                                      the Machine, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1948.

                                      Claude E. Shannon (1948). “A mathematical theory of communication,” The Bell

                                      System Technical Journal 27: 379-423, 623-656.

                                      Simon, Herbert A. The Sciences of the Artificial. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press,

                                      1981. 

 

 

                                      Strategy and Branding

 

                                      Guest Speaker:

                                      Lee Moreau, Principal of Continuum

                                      Dario Buzzini, Design Director, IDEO

 

                                      Recommended Readings:

                                      Brown, Tim, and Barry Kātz. Change by Design: How Design Thinking                                                               Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation.New York: Harper Business, 2009

                                      Mau, Bruce, and Jennifer Leonard. Massive Change. London: Phaidon, 2004.

                                      McDonough, William, and Michael Braungart. Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the

                                      Way We Make Things. New York: North Point Press, 2002. 

 

 

                                      In lab testing of the game concepts and prototypes in a quantifiable manner for

                                      design iteration.

 

                                      Envisioning Part and PResent Futures

 

                                      Jameson, Fredric. Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and

                                      Other Science Fictions. London: Verso, 2005.

                                      Cook, Peter. 1999. Archigram. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

                                      Online Archigram archive of images: http://archigram.westminster.ac.uk/

                                      Mark Wigley, Constant’s New Babylon: The Hyper-Architecture of

                                      Desire. Rotterdam: Witte de With, 1998.

 

 

                                   

                                      Play 3 games, Observe, & Document

 

 

                                      PRESENTATION OF ASSIGNMENT 3 -  ALL

 

* Changes to the schedule, if necessary, will be announced via email and/or during class.

* Supplemental Graduate Student Assignment due date will be determined in advance of the due date.