CHRISTOPHER WOLFORD

Critique Assemblages in Response to Emergency Hybrid Studio Pedagogy

Christopher Wolford, Yue Zhao, Shantanu Kashyap, & Colin M. Gray.

Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA.

Published September 2021 at the LearnxDesign: 6th International Conference for Design Education Researchers at Shandong University of Art & Design, Jinan, China.

Abstract: Studio education focuses on active learning and assessment that is embedded in students’ exploration of ill-structured problems. Critique is a central component of this experience, providing a means of sensemaking, assessment, and socialization. These critique sessions encompass multiple types of interactions among students and instructors at multiple levels of formality. In most design programs, these practices have been situated in a physical studio environment—until they were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. As a group of educators and design students, we used this disruption as an opportunity to reimagine means of critique engagement. In this paper, we document the creation, piloting, and evaluation of new critique assemblages—each of which bring together a group of technology tools, means and norms of engagement, and channels of participation. We report both on the extension of existing critique types such as desk crits, group crits, and formal presentation crits, describing both the instructional goals of the new critique assemblages and the students’ experience of these assemblages. Building on these outcomes, we reflect upon opportunities to engage with new hybrid critique approaches once residential instruction can resume, and identify patterns of socialization and wellbeing that have emerged through these assemblages that foster critical reflection on studio practices.

Iterating Overnight: Using Cardboard to Teach Audio During a Pandemic

Colin M. Gray, Christopher Wolford, Davin Huston.

Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA.

Published May 2021 at the Mudd Design Workshop XII: Designing Through Making: 2-D and 3-D Representations of Designs In Campus Facilities and Remotely, Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA, 2021.

Abstract: Prototyping is a key competency in engineering and technology disciplines, bridging abstract and often-technical design requirements and the realization of these requirements in the physical world. While many approaches have historically been used to encourage the development of prototyping competence in engineering education, rapid fabrication techniques are increasingly available both to students and the general public as part of the “maker movement.” However, the development of prototyping competence has been considered to be understudied, particularly with regard to the appropriate levels of fidelity through which a prototype might be most beneficial to problematize the design situation, allow exploration of the problem space, and facilitate iteration. In this paper, we describe the tensions among technologically and pragmatically different approaches to prototyping. We focus our inquiry on a traditionally in-person multidisciplinary engineering/technology lab course which was confronted with two difficulties: a building construction project that caused the lab to be relocated off of the main campus with limited fabrication equipment availability and a mid-semester shift to online-only instruction due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the context of these two instructional tensions, we describe the outcomes of a student project to design and fabricate a functioning loudspeaker in cardboard, providing a detailed account of the design outcomes and process moves that resulted from this shift in fabrication approach.