CAD and fostering creativity within the studio environment

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Ford, P. ORCID: 0000-0002-9607-3292 and Marsden, M., 2004. CAD and fostering creativity within the studio environment. In: P. Lloyd, N. Roozenburg, C. McMahon and E. Brodhurst, eds., The changing face of design education. Proceedings of the Engineering and Product Design Education Conference, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands, 2-3 September 2004. Glasgow: The Design Society, pp. 617-624.

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Abstract

The BA Design Products and BSc Industrial Design courses at De Montfort University, faculty of Art and Design have always thrived on an active, lively studio environment.

Working with and learning from peers has always been seen as essential in developing creativity and innovation in developing designers. It often emulates the kind of studio environment encountered within consultancy and 'in-house' design facilities.

In recent years where the widening of access for students in the UK has increased and the skill and ability levels of students is now more diverse than ever before; the studio has become an area of consistency for students.

As CAD has become more and more influential in design and design courses, we have witnessed how significantly it has affected the studio environment in recent years, ranging from the exclusivity of the Unix Workstation in the 90’s to the more widely available 'NT box' in recent years.

In the late 90's and early 2000 we witnessed a significant number of students purchasing rchasing their own computers for home/lodgings use, availing themselves of often discounted student editions of CAD software or unfortunately often illegal software.

This had a dramatic impact on studio and the more 'paper based' aspects of the design process that took place within it. Why use a studio if access to computers provided by the University was insufficient and they could stay at home using their own more accessible resource?

As PC's have become very much more of a commodity item we have been able to comfortably afford a more comprehensive, more readily accessible CAD provision for our students; we are now witnessing a significant resurgence in studio use.

This paper describes this transition and how the ready access to CAD has reduced it to the tool it should be, where it is now seen as normal and expected. Creative thinking and the need for fundamentally good ideas and the 'paper based' aspects of the design process (enhanced by the studio environment) are now taking its rightful place.

We wish to progress this further by considering the eradicating the CAD lab itself by integrating CAD prevision and its teaching within the studio environment. Our thoughts on this will form the conclusion of the paper.

Item Type:	Chapter in book
Creators:	Ford, P. and Marsden, M.
Publisher:	The Design Society
Place of Publication:	Glasgow
Date:	September 2004
Divisions:	Schools > School of Art and Design
Record created by:	Linda Sullivan
Date Added:	05 Dec 2018 09:41
Last Modified:	05 Dec 2018 09:41
Related URLs:	Organisation
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/35229