Design Across Scales, Disciplines and Problem Contexts
Course facts
- Payment: Free, no certificate
- Credits: Non Credit
- Learning style: Self-paced, start anytime
- Resources: Design Assignments with Examples; Projects with Examples
MIT OpenCourseWare details
- As taught in: Spring 2013
- Department: Architecture, Media Arts and Sciences
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Explore design across data, fabrication, intelligence and play through three team assignments: a representation system, a making tool and a tested game.
Design here is treated as a way of looking at the world, not as a discipline of its own. Open to any major, this class moves across scales, taking in information, machines, games and organizations. Guest lecturers in science and design set the themes, labs teach the tools, and three team assignments put them to use.
What You Will Achieve
- Create a representational system that communicates information
- Design and fabricate a tool that makes a specific object
- Design, build and test a game that abstracts a global issue
- Use CAD, data visualization, fabrication and interactive tools
Program Overview
Design of Representation
The first themes concern how information is shown.
- Design of futures
- Notation and communication
- Computation, visualization and big data
- Data mining and data processing labs
Design of Fabrication
The second assignment asks you to make something that makes something.
- Tools, techniques and technologies
- Design of mimicry
- 2D and 3D CAD tools
- Laser-cutting and 3D printing workshop
Innovation, Play and Intelligence
The third assignment asks teams to design and test a game, and closing lectures widen the frame.
- From mind to machine
- Games and constructs
- Unity 3D and augmented reality
- Concept to commerce
Course Completion
Job Outlook
This breadth suits people heading into product design, design research, architecture or interdisciplinary engineering teams.
Good for: Students of any field who are curious about design and want to make things in mixed teams.
Keep in mind: From spring 2013. Published materials are the assignments and project examples, not the guest lectures. Tool versions have changed, and fabrication assumes access to a shop and partners.
Bottom line: The three assignments are the prize here: inventive, open-ended briefs you could run with friends or a class.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do the labs relate to the lectures?
Lectures set a design theme and the labs teach tools for it, such as data visualization, CAD, laser cutting and 3D printing, which feed the three assignments.
What are the three assignments?
Create a representational system, make something that helps you make something, and design and test a game that abstracts a global issue.
Are the guest lectures published?
No. The page lists guests and topics, but the materials are design assignments and project examples, so you will not hear the talks.
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