DE5019 - 3D Design: Projects

Your learning in this module will be structured around responding to design briefs. The briefs present opportunities for you to develop your skills and knowledge to design fully functional products and furniture. Much of the module’s learning is through ‘doing’ the practice of design and engaging in the experience of making prototypes. Your use of the studio and workshops, therefore, will play a crucial role in how you engage with the learning.

Timetabled workshop sessions, which build on the competency you will have developed in the 3D Design: Making module, are supported by specialist cabinet-making, metal-smithing, machining and fabrication technicians. These sessions will enable you to prototype, test and realise your ideas. You will use time in the workshop to explore the potential of your design—for example, its structure, aesthetic qualities, proportions, proposed manufacturing methods, ergonomics or materials. Towards the end of a design brief, you will also be expected to use the workshops to create a precise, refined, exhibition-ready final prototype.

Each project that makes up this module is supported in the studio by group critiques and individual tutorials, providing regular feedback on the crucial stages of the design process and encouraging the development of your communication skills. You will also develop your independent judgement and aesthetic sensibility throughout the design projects, as you respond to feedback and have time to repeatedly revisit and refine the details of a developing design.

This module is supported by studio and workshop-based teaching, with academic staff working with you in both environments. Tutor-led seminar groups, peer review sessions and formative assessment give opportunities to apply feedback and improve competences throughout the module. The framing of the project briefs will also encourage personal responsibility for, and reflection upon, your own learning.

In addition to timetabled slots with academic staff, the crucial workshop aspects of the module are supported by dedicated cabinet-making, metal-smithing, machining and fabrication technical staff based in the furniture and product design workshops.

Tutor Guided Independent Learning/Student Independent Learning time will enable you to make constructive use of feedback received in the studio/workshop, develop your independent judgement and encourage you to direct your own learning needs. Such learning may include a range of activities such as; contextual reading; developing software skills and techniques; traditional media experimentation; photographic practice; practical skills-based learning.

The module is supported by a specific virtual learning environment (eLearning Portal) where you will find all the relevant documentation (briefs, module guides, assessment requirements etc.) The digital submission of interim works for tutorial guidance and formative assessment allows for expedient communication and the effective review of work whilst also utilising industry standard practices.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)

On successful completion of this module, you should be able to:

Knowledge & Understanding:

? Demonstrate an advanced knowledge of functional and aesthetic concerns in the design of three-dimensional artefacts.
? Demonstrate detailed knowledge of materials, skills and processes in the realisation of prototypes.

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:

? Skilfully produce and communicate creative solutions.
? Thoughtfully navigate the creative and commercial requirements of furniture and product design practice.

Personal Values Attributes:

? Evaluate your own progress and exercise self-criticism and analysis throughout design projects.
? Show a professional and articulate approach to practice through engagement with staff and peer interactivity.

Teaching, learning and assessment for this module is structured around the completion of design briefs. This activity is formatively assessed as part of the teaching of the module.

Summative assessment of the module is via the submission of two portfolios, which ask you to collate the work created throughout:

? Portfolio 1 will be submitted at the end of block 2 (50%)
? Portfolio 2 will be submitted at the end of block 3 (50%)

Feedback is written and given via tutorial review at the end of each block.

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This module is made up of design projects that extend students’ experience of designing and making products and furniture. It consists of a series of design briefs that present the creative opportunities and constraints necessary to develop design and critical thinking skills. The project briefs challenge students to sensitively address the requirements of defined markets and end users in the context of responsible, professional design practice. Students will also have the opportunity within these briefs to further explore and articulate their own design philosophies and preoccupations.

Studio and workshop-based teaching develops students’ ability to manage the complexities of conceiving, refining and producing working prototypes to a professional standard. As students are supported to create complex and sophisticated pieces of furniture and product design, they will learn how to use the workshop not just for the mechanical realisation of existing concepts, but as a venue for the discussion and consideration of alternatives, with direct reference to works-in-progress. Students will learn to become designers capable of thinking through making—able to refine the qualities of nascent artefacts with reference to prototypes and their understanding of how those prototypes were made. Students will be challenged to design outcomes appropriate to contemporary manufacturing capabilities and markets, to the highest possible level of aesthetic and technical refinement. By the end of this module, students will have developed their independent judgement and sensitivity towards the qualities of artefacts as they design.