Design for extreme environment: experience of Russian MD course
Year: 2009
Editor: Clarke, A, Ion, W, McMahon, C and Hogarth, P
Author: Garin, Nickolay; Usenyuk, Svetlana; Panova, Maria; Kukanov, Denis
Section: INCLUSIVE DESIGN
Page(s): 564-569
Abstract
Russia is the largest northern polycultural country, i.e. the territory of environmental and cultural extremes. The issue of comfortable human existence may be solved by creating a 'new culture' as an aggregate of adaptive behavior patterns, which could be clearly expressed through the material environment. The main prerequisite for all master's degree projects is the possibility to change the direction of culture 'making': from artifacts to human internal fundamentals. The 'concept-in-work' of MD course educational programme includes the following "Three Pillars": 1) Key question: What? The type of activity: Creation (it is the ability to grasp a situation as a whole by force of creative (or artistic) intuition (neither by reason nor by perception). The output of this "flash of inspiration" would be an image of the solution, i.e. the "soul" of the future object). Key role: Artist. 2) Key question: Why? Type of activity: Research (it is a targeting activity. The output would be a statement with detailed explanation and benchmarks for "executing designers"). Key role: Scientist. 3) Key question: How? Type of activity: Engineering (it is a stage of embodiment via laws of composition and combinatoric principles). Key role: Constructor.
Keywords: Regional Approach, Russian Arctic, ‘New’ Culture, What-Why-How, Master of Design