Contextual Design

In the first year the program is focused on enhancing the students’ artistic making skills and creating awareness of design’s impact within various contexts. Lessons are organized within thematic design studios, in which students learn to 1- research and analyse abstract themes; 2- turn assignments that were given by tutors into personal urgencies; 3- create designs that offer original perspectives on given situations; 4- understand their own interests, talents and weaknesses. A great variety of themes and approaches are explored during three trimesters, and guidance is offered by a changing group of tutors. Gradually the students formulate their own questions of interest, and proactively seek for topics in the outside world they would like to explore further.In the second year guidance is focussed on enhancing the students’ artistic as well as their reflective talents. The students explore topics suggested by tutors and topics of their own choosing, which are based on personal ambitions. To confront their own approaches and interests with a larger societal context they acquire knowledge, for instance through literature study, and develop a fruitful interaction between a growing body of knowledge and an on-going experimental design process. In the course of this final year the students also research the valid references of their projects (such as ‘which questions have others raised within this area of research; which answers have others provided?’) and they formulate the distinct positions they intend to take within a field of interest. The two-year course is concluded with a design project and a report of the design research, which usually consists of a thesis text. Both the design and the thesis employ a personal vocabulary to communicate to a larger audience the content of the project.