STUDY PROGRAMME
Design

AFAM CODE
ABPR17

DISCIPLINARY AREA
Design

DISCIPLINARY FIELD
Design

CREDITS
12

APPROACH
Theoretical/project based

The programme aims at providing the students with the basic tools to approach projects and their complexities, diversities and pluralities within the contemporary context. It comprises two modules, corresponding to the two areas of design: Product design and Interior design. Also, it includes a Design System module to provide students with basic understanding of the design languages and to give them theoretical support to the Product design and Interior design projects.

The programme grants 12 credits, divided as follows:

• PRODUCT DESIGN 1: 5 CFA

• INTERIOR DESIGN 1: 5 CFA

• DESIGN SYSTEM 1: 2 CFA

Successful students will be able to:

PRODUCT DESIGN 1:

• Manage the foundation of a product design project, with special attention to the research that characterized design from the second post-war era, and to the most interesting contemporary experimentation

• Master all relevant critical, methodological and fact-finding tools that are necessary to understand the production of the last fifty years, thus increasing project awareness

• Make proper use of the design method that is necessary to approach design issues that are increasingly complex, comprised in a wide range of professional contexts and market sectors

INTERIOR DESIGN 1:

• Analyse interior spaces

• Read and create architectural drawings (plan, section, etc)

• Develop moderately complex projects within existing spaces

DESIGN SYSTEM 1:

• Understand the interaction between the different cultural dimensions that merge into the design system

• Understand the types and languages of design, both during the analysis phase and the development of the project, in order to create objects that are semantically "dense" and can efficiently become part of a contemporary scenario

PRODUCT DESIGN 1:

• Observing is designing

• One thing leads to another

• The aesthetics of ethics

• Designing methods

• "Subjectivity" in designing

• The "design" thinking

INTERIOR DESIGN 1:

• Reading and understanding space

• Interpreting briefs and building up ideas

• Relation between form and function

• Organizing paths within a given space

• Dimensioning rooms and furniture

• Materials, colours and light: the sensorial dimension of space

DESIGN SYSTEM 1:

• Types of design

• People at the centre of projects

• Languages of design, from its origins to today

• Languages of contemporary design

This is a theoretical/project based course.

Students will take part in the following activities, which may vary depending on the development of different projects:

• Classroom lectures

• Use of tutorials, videos or other media tools

• Exercises and revisions

• Workshops

• Individual or group projects

• Individual or group study and research

PRODUCT DESIGN 1:

• Oral exams

• Completion of comprehensive projects

• Submission of exercises, projects or research works

INTERIOR DESIGN 1:

• Oral exams

• Completion of comprehensive projects

• Submission of exercises, projects or research works

DESIGN SYSTEM 1:

• Oral exams

• Exercises or projects

• Presentation of exercises or research

Further details about the exams will be provided by the professors.

The final grade will result from the weighted average of the programme modules.

PRODUCT DESIGN 1:

• Munari, B. Design as art, ed. Penguin Books Ltd.

• www.designboom.com

• www.dezeen.com

• www.mocoloco.com

• www.droogdesign.nl

• www.notcot.org

• www.vitra.com

INTERIOR DESIGN 1:

• Curtis, W., Modern Architecture Since 1900, Phaidon.

DESIGN SYSTEM 1:

• Verganti, R., Design-driven Innovation, Rizzoli Etas.

• www.dezeen.com

• www.desinboom.com

• www.blog-espritdesign.com

Many of the recommended sources, together with additional material, are also available online on MyNaba, in the Library section.

More books and resources might be requested or suggested by the professors.