Contemporary Design Education in Australia : Creating Transdisciplinary Futures

Abstract

This book offers a range of approaches to teaching higher education design students to learn to design collaboratively and creatively, through transdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary learning experiences.

It highlights that the premise of traditional disciplinary silos does little to advance the competencies needed for contemporary design and non-linear career paths. It makes the point that higher education should respond to the impacts of a changing society, including fluctuating market demands, economic variations, uncertainties, and globalization.

Chapters highlight approaches that address this changing landscape, to meet student, industry and societal needs and reflect a range of design education contexts in which the authors have taught, with a focus on experiences at the Queensland University of Technology, Australia, but also including collaborations and comparative discussions elsewhere in Australia and globally, spanning Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and the United States.

The book is positioned not as a definitive theoretical model for transdisciplinary design education but instead as a collective of chapters in which many forms of learning are explored through overarching themes of curriculum design and experiential and authentic learning and collaboration, transforming professional identities, and design cultures.