Design Education: Process Versus System

Abstract

The observation. that curriculum innovation involves the importation of ";new"; practices into pre-existing contexts is a banal one. Similarly, to indicate that many of the practical problems connected with innovation derive from an incompatibility of purpose between the ";new"; practice and the setting into which it is being introduced, is only to indicate the obvious. Such points may be trite enough in themselves, but they are still worth bearing in mind, and I propose to utilise them here as starting points for a consideration of the relationship between design as a process and school ing as a system of instruction and learning. It is hoped that what such an analysis will yield is, on the one hand, some insight into the requirements of ";design education"; and, on the other hand, a theoretical perspective for the articulation of what is problematic about its implementation in the classroom.