Coworking: Open and Informal Design Classroom

by Carlos Duarte & Fernando Mendes in Lisboa, Portugal.
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Abstract in English:

Education has always been a universal matter of discussion for those who teach and also for those who learn. This discussion has now become especially urgent since the advent of new technologies and their implications for education. Design education is no exception. It can be said that most of the global discussions on Education establish a common diagnosis: the failure of educational models based on formal learning, pre-programmed and pre-formatted approaches, disconnected from practice and from digital technologies. Learning Design has, since its inception, a strong practical component, laboratory, and experimentation. However, the education models presented today doesn’t seem to alter decisively the social and spatial shape(s) of the classroom. Along with education, work also undergoes profound changes. Its dematerialization, through the ubiquity of the Internet and the portability of computers, generates new kinds of professionals and innovating workspaces – Coworking spaces. Consequently, coworking spaces start to contaminate all aspects of work, learning or leisure. One can now work at home; in public spaces; at different leisure outdoors; and even at school.
This paper focuses on how higher education in Design can benefit from a coworking approach towards a new classroom-based on the learning processes observed in those spaces.

Open Access? Yes

Publication Year 2016

English | Discipline Design