Design Studio: A Community of Practitioners?

Critical Analysis

The design studio is not just (or even) a place for learning; it is, instead, a place of “self-transformation of becoming.” Students who spend time in the space of studio view it as a place, and in writing about this informal pedagogical practice of studio, Williams describes that “being in place defines the various spaces that reflect and hold students emerging identities as practitioners.” Design students practice being practitioners through embodied learning and the identification of and practice of social practice.

Williams selects many lenses through which to explore place, including Communities of Practice, Bourdieu’s view of a social milieu and habitus, Aristotle’s language of hexis (a habitual disposition), and Webster’s own view of Bourdieu. Any one of these lenses is sufficient to interpret the data gathered through Williams’ interviews with students, which identified a core finding in the strange duality of space (or place) requirements that students need to conduct their work. Williams observes that “The students held in tension two often conflicting desires: to create an equipped space of creative potential, free from practical and time constraints; and the need to work or simply ‘be’ in the presence of others.”

At the surface, these do appear separate or binary. In a shared place, it’s inevitable that creative potential might be interrupted, if that potential is viewed as a state of quiet, uninterrupted flow. But the tensioned places are not opposites, and this highlights an opportunity for additional rich exploration. Students are looking to build a space that is their own, to escape from practical constraints, to ignore deadlines, to work, and to be around people doing similar work; these are all achievable in the studio space itself, and these five qualities make up a strong frame for exploring signature pedagogy of studio outside of knowledge acquisition and away from faculty. A classroom is provided, but a studio is built, primarily by students. Practical constraints and deadlines are often temporarily suspended in a successful studio through playfulness and immersion. Work is done, and work done together takes on a form of shared toil; if Williams wanted to add yet another lens of interpretation on his data, he might use a Marxist view of the space of work as freedom from oppressors (perhaps the professors themselves.)

These five qualities represent the working space that a student will experience after they graduate, and this then underscores William’s final conclusion—that design studio education is in teaching a “process of self-transformation and of becoming, rather than the straightforward acquisition of knowledge.”

Research Value

The value of this work in informing my own research is that it:

• Offering qualities of a five-facet framework for studio culture (although not explicitly presenting them as a frame)