Which Proximity in Design Education?: A Contemporary Curriculum

This book explores various pedagogical viewpoints and dialectical positions within the field of design education and the concept of proximity it has established with industries and manufacturing.

Which Proximity in Design Education? frames a wide range of approaches in design studios on undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate levels and their capacity to render meaningful and novel attitudes and actions beyond the classroom. The urgent call for resilience in the way we lead our lives has brought our global boundaries and social tensions to the forefront of the conversation, and there is a generation of students fully aware of our collective responsibility in this decisive decade. As such, educators need to rapidly adapt to new tools and ways of teaching design, whilst also being challenged on how to educate the designer for the pressing tasks of the near future. It presents optimistic solutions for how education can support renovated mindsets and efforts towards common goals.

This book contains distinct visions of the world and its problems relating to proximity in design education. As such, the chapters present diversified solutions to these issues, which will be of interest to teachers and researchers working in design education.

Rita Assoreira Almendra is a Full Professor at the Lisbon School of Architecture (FA-ULisboa) where she is Head of the Design Department and coordinates both the Design Doctoral Program and the nucleus of Design at CIAUD research centre. She holds a PhD in Design (2010) from FA-ULisboa, and a Master's in Design Management (2004) and an MBA with marketing specialization (2002), both from the Catholic University of Lisbon. Rita has worked for more than 20 years as a design researcher and educator, with numerous publications and master's and doctoral supervisions in this field. She is the founder and coordinator of the Research & Education in Design research group [redes.fa.ulisboa.pt], and was responsible for two editions of the International Conference on Research and Education in Design.