Loughborough University
Browse
GG_JRM_EPDE16_final.pdf (382.46 kB)

The designer and the scientist: The road to inspire transdisciplinary synergies

Download (382.46 kB)
conference contribution
posted on 2016-10-10, 09:43 authored by Gionata Gatto, John McCardleJohn McCardle
It is essential for the contemporary design practitioner to meet the complex challenges that define modern knowledge-based economies. Within both the professional and educational context, being effective requires broad analytical skills and an adaptive attitude to learning. Developing such knowledge to include a deeper understanding of science, technology, and society, and how the interplay of these domains influences culture and politics, has become crucial. Transdisciplinary engagement relies on the ability to draw together observations from a broader range of subject matter than currently employed in the core of most design curricula. Within a design educational context this is often assimilated through a problem-solving approach to learning, but at practitioner level it is often a far less systematic route to take. The case study presented here illustrates that Designers would benefit from learning about creative forms of practice-based participatory action as a prerequisite to engaging in transdisciplinary collaborative projects. This paper provides an insight into funded research that entailed a designer establishing a synergistic relationship with a natural science institution. The work reports on the transdisciplinary collaboration and the interventions of design thinking within a standardized cycle of scientific enquiry that supported the pursuit of plant science research. The outcome provided artefacts for public engagement and the representation of future scenarios for botanical concepts as a way to obtain mutual benefits for the designer, the scientific partners and the social demographic audience.

History

School

  • Design

Published in

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ENGINEERING AND PRODUCT DESIGN EDUCATION

Citation

GATTO, G. and MCCARDLE, J., 2016. The designer and the scientist: The road to inspire transdisciplinary synergies. Presented at the 18th International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education (E&PDE 2016), Aalborg University, Denmark, 8-9th Sept.

Publisher

Institution of Engineering Designers

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Acceptance date

2016-05-28

Publication date

2016

Notes

This is a conference paper .

Language

  • en

Location

AALBORG UNIVERSITY, DENMARK

Usage metrics

    Loughborough Publications

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC