Over the last two weeks the Graduate Design Diploma students have been having ‘Mini Charrettes’ to develop ideas for their major design projects.
Each student had 40 minutes with everyone contributing to the thinking for their project. The first 10 minutes was spent presenting the current state of the project and this was followed by 30 minutes of intensive collaborative work by the whole group. All thoughts, questions and ideas were recorded on a giant roll of paper and each student took away their section of the paper to kickstart the next phase of development.
Some comments from the students on the value of the experience:
The Mini-Charettes session, in the beginning, is like breaking down stacked up Jenga. I believe it shed lights on hidden aspects of the project that the designer has been working on, and enable the project to be broken down and be re-built based on a better foundation of ideas. In this way, it is similar to a great tutorial session but enforced by the peer designers, and allows all to learn from each other’s projects. (Mirim)
Today’s session was an experience I will not forget. Sharing comments and ideas helped in the process of developing the aim for this project. I believe that this session is very important for designers to establish a critical angle to design. (Amani)
My shallow ideas became deeper and more logical thinking through this process. I want to use it next time as well. (Jisun)
I found that it is better to have more than one brain to expand the ideas and thinking processes through sharing and discussion with the others. I love it. 🙂 (Zoey)
Design Charrette gave me a broader range of perspectives and deep insight into my project. It inspired me to come up with various ideas, some of which I can’t generate without classmates’ suggestions. It gave me opportunities to engage with other projects and that is exciting. (Takuya)
After the Charrette time, it made me very confused but on the other hand, I knew which way to focus. I realized the importance of conveying my idea. (Boram)
This way of expressing ideas and reacting with classmates is very useful to me. I believe there are always some things that I didn’t think about but the others would. So it helps me to know the unknown unknowns, view my project from a different aspect. (Christine)
We will definitely be repeating this process later in the project!
Kay Stables
Goldsmiths Design Blog 