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The Factory: an Experimental Studio for Discovering the Other
Author(s) -
Almaç Bihter
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
international journal of art and design education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.312
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1476-8070
pISSN - 1476-8062
DOI - 10.1111/jade.12119
Subject(s) - merge (version control) , studio , field (mathematics) , design education , set (abstract data type) , factory (object oriented programming) , design studio , context (archaeology) , engineering design process , computer science , sociology , epistemology , engineering , visual arts , mathematics , art , mechanical engineering , philosophy , biology , information retrieval , programming language , telecommunications , paleontology , pure mathematics
This article discusses the idea of otherness in design education and introduces a new approach that merges the potentials of collaborative and individual design. The aim is for each individual student to discover how others design to criticise and derive their own ways of designing. Therefore, the discussion here focuses on the process of becoming aware of other designers and the importance of being with others while designing. I call this state the Field of Otherness. It is something that cannot be described or taught; it is a relative and indeterminate zone based on the existence of others. It is a set of potentials in which designers oscillate and their design aspects merge into a multiplicity. In this article I argue that by discovering others, designers encounter each other in the Field of Otherness and this enables them to design diversely. To broaden the discussion within this context, an experimental one‐day project called the Factory is explored. The main idea of the project was to introduce students to the Field of Otherness, in which they would design by continual ‘as ifs’ and oscillations to meet the other; who is precisely unfamiliar, unexpected, unknown and inexperienced. Interviews with students three months after the project are used to investigate the effects. These interviews can also be seen as fragments of the otherness experience of the students.