Matter still matters. Design education for a material culture in the immaterial age

Following the teaching experience developed for more than two decades within the design curricula of the Scuola del Design del Politecnico di Milano, between 2015 and 2016 a small group of scholars [1] – sharing the common experience of teaching design fundamentals for university novices attending first year design courses – committed to a reflection to refine certain pedagogical elements to foster a coherent, rich, and grounded basis for local design studio courses intended for design newcomers.

Addressing needs frequently expressed by novice students exposed to design fundamentals at the very beginning of their university curriculum, the group study interests were meant to condense and coagulate a disciplinary, although multifaceted, recognition of the factors grounding a dense sense of design that could be articulated on the terrain of the tangible substance of things and of the relevance of the human dimension [2] of the relation with matter.

To better inspire and guide design learners to fully understand (and exploit) the meanings and opportunities of materiality – as well as to cope with the counterpart claims of immateriality – it was assumed that approaches to product design for novices more than ever advocate an integrated approach to the study of physical attributes of materials entwined with the meaning of the profound humane experience with materials themselves.

This contribution focuses on some commentaries highlighted during the collective scholarly reflection.