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The Bulkeley Market
Get PDFOlivia Chen has conducted research into the transient dawn markets of Hong Kong in which hawkers secretly operate second-hand markets, forming a liminal space in which objects of inconsequential value are sold and exchanged. Through this Chen has built an understanding of the web of the social relations and hierarchies that underpin poorer areas in Hong Kong, exposing the socio-economic disparities in Bulkeley Street, Hung Hom and giving the lie to the prosperous facade of Hong Kong. The reality that she captures is a vanishing one, with street markets giving way to shopping malls. Through protracted observation, Chen has found that such markets contribute to the recycling and exchange mechanisms of a material economy of the city, and that such spaces of production build social cohesion through weaving webs of social connections. As a wish to manifest these social webs, Chen’s work The Bulkeley Market explores storytelling as a spatial practice in ways that highlight the importance of such issues in the production of social space
An Encounter in Hong Kong Streets, 60 Years Apart
Get PDFHong Kong has a history punctuated by waves of immigrants and influxes of expats, especially during years of wars, famine, and drastic social changes. The wide wealth gap among different classes contributes to the diverse cityscapes within walking distance of one another. Street photography in the international and multicultural metropolis has continued to fascinate photographers – some sojourning and others rooting. With two sets of photos – from British traveller Nick Howard and Hong Kong native Phil M.F. Shek – laid side by side, this essay questions the meanings generated through the juxtaposition of these images. Since the photo sets were taken in the 1950s and the 2010s respectively, does the time gap make a statement about Hong Kong today
Alternative Knowledges — Communities · Creativity · Narration
Get PDFWe called the global creative community for contributions by summer 2020 in an attempt to map practices for generating and sharing alternative knowledges across a variety of creative methods and forms.
Our call accepts that there may be an infinite number of equally valid, but possibly less accessible – or merely accessible by certain communities – knowledge systems, much like concurrent physics is considering the existence of a multiverse of parallel universes. If this were indeed our view, then obviously it would be a futile exercise articulating a comprehensive overview of all existing/possible systems. Instead, all we may attempt is articulating potential frameworks to qualitatively and/or quantitatively describe such systems
The Algorithmic Gardener’s Field Guide to Pulling Weeds
Get PDFTeach a robot to pull a weed. What sounds like a straightforward task comprises an intricate set of actions and complicated ideas of nature. Translating a culturally-defined, ambiguous object (‘a weed’) into successful machine code directions requires human-machine negotiation and reveals emerging nature-technology relationships. The field guide provided here contains instructions for a Taurus dexterous robot, commonly employed in tele-surgery and roadside bomb diffusion. The soybean plant, also addressed in the code and images, is an intentional choice based on the combination of agro-environmental, technological and political issues involved in its cultivation globally. As an artistic experiment based on existing technologies, this visual and prose-based algorithmic narrative asks readers to think about how culture and politics are embedded in computer code, and how both algorithms and data structures may manifest themselves in future environmental and agricultural realities
Almost Risking It All: Non-calculable Risk-taking and Design Education
Get PDFThis paper provides an argument against understanding risk-taking in design education as something ideally in need of only being calculable and formalisable. Using the German sociologist Ulrich Beck’s theory on risktaking combined with the current discourse on design thinking, together with an analysis of a three week-long interdisciplinary design workshop, we analyse and discuss how risk-taking - as a general concept - in design education is an inherent element of the education itself. We argue, however, non-calculable risks, like human-centred design concerns, like desirability of use, ethics of technology, are an equally important part of a modern-day educational skillset as calculable risks. The aim is arguing for the prospect of interdisciplinary design-based education models as one way of embracing the non-calculable elements of a problem space
Service-Learning Education Integrated Design Education Through a Design- Build Focus
Get PDFDifferent from the conventional design-built projects, the service-learning educational model represents a student led community driven education process. This photos essay delivers evidence, spanning 15 years and various contexts, demonstrating the impact of service learning and its dependency on cross-disciplinary skills. Beyond the social value, service learning fosters a series of interpersonal and professional relationships, amplifying skills and education value outside of the classroom
Vertical Studio: Undergraduate Collaborative Advanced Learning and Teaching Methodology
Get PDFSince 2016 the Environmental and Interior Design Programme (E&I), School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, has implemented an educational model called the vertical studio. Until now, the vertical studio model has become an instrumental peer-to-peer learning scheme while enhancing students' competency in digital literacy. A first of its kind within the design education context of Asia, the vertical studio model has contributed to advance design education practices, embracing collaborative learning opportunities, and facilitate knowledge and skills transfer of drawing techniques, technology, and digital proficiency
The Pandemic and This Issue of Design Education
Get PDFWhen we first initiated a call for this issue on design education, never could we have imagined or foreseen what lay ahead. Since late 2019, Hong Kong has gone through an enormously difficult time. First, spikes of social unrest, rapidly followed by COVID-19. Half of the first semester of the 2019 – 2020 academic year, as skirmishes closed in on The Hong Kong Polytechnic University campus, all courses had to move over to available and often misunderstood online platforms. As the situation finally subsided, the virus emerged, impacting the commencement of the second semester, and the overall delivery modes of a structured curriculum for an entire year.
Both faculty and students of the School of Design lived and worked in high hopes to return to faceto- face teaching sooner, rather than later. In time, hope conceded to a stark reality that online, the virtual and the digital models of education, have moved into focus as the main and primary modes of education. Long gone are the days of the digital as a mere supplemental or peripheral possibility.
The digital reality presented other challenges to design education: ensuring credible and authentic outcomes for each of the design disciplines within a non-studio setting, the expression of ideas, or demonstrating principles across and through digital platforms with the additional burdens of a digital generation that instantaneously become camera shy. Or, in the extreme the mistrust shown by students that reviewers may not understand the design work without a physical presence.
Moving one year forward, the growing pains of digital pedagogies has caused an instantaneous maturing of educators, those being educated, and of what is said, shown and discussed. Somehow, the global body of design environments have collectively responded to these and more local challenges, yet again transforming the specifics of digital pedagogies across unexplored territories.
The following series of images attest to the resilience of digital pedagogies and design institutions. May this stand as a testament to rapid responses, individuals who took the reins, and how educators shape the future of design, design-research and ultimately how design is carried forward across generations
Facilitating Tacit Knowledge Construction: Re-Examining Boundaries of the Design Studio Environment
Get PDFDesign knowledge, for its most part, is tacit. The embedded and inherent nature of tacit knowledge implies that it is a cognitive and internal construct acquired through the design act of doing. However, it is also socially constructed through shared experiences, collaborations and interactions. The design studio is a dynamic, pedagogical site that facilitates the construction of tacit knowledge through its myriad of interactive spaces. Online and virtual platforms offer opportunities to extend the learning boundaries of its social realm. Studies in the influence of these spaces on tacit knowledge construction are currently insufficient. An interpretive study was conducted in different studio environments within the Environment and Interior Design discipline of the School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University to further the understanding of tacit knowledge construction in blended learning environments
‘Time to Be an Academic Influencer’: Peer-to-Peer Learning Enhances Students’ Self-Directed Learning with Disparate Knowledge Background in CAD
Get PDFThis paper explores how Peer-to-Peer learning can level-up students' understanding of computer-aided design (CAD) with Autodesk Auto- CAD programme for Interior Design Year 1 students. As students come from different knowledge backgrounds, they approach the module with different understanding levels, with the weaker students unable to follow the live demonstration tutorials. A peer tutoring assignment using a student-led peer-to-peer learning pedagogy, was introduced to advance students' understanding and internalise content better by reinforcing their learning. Each group has an equal proportion of students with different levels of knowledge and capabilities, and each group member conducted self-research on a topic segment, shared their knowledge and findings within their group, and thereafter curated a 15-minute lecture and facilitation workshop for peers. Tutors provided consultation and mediation, encouraging students’ participation. The assignment’s results showed that the peer-to-peer learning approach efficaciously empowered students and motivated learning, enabling them to be self-directed learners