Affiliations: [a] Department of Mechanical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy | [b] Dipartimento di Ingegneria Gestionale e della Produzione, Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy | [c] Department of Industrial Engineering of Florence, Università di Firenze, Firenze, Italy
Abstract: Design education is a highly debated topic since decades, yet the focus on multi-disciplinary classes has gained a paramount importance due to the multi-disciplinary nature of today’s global challenges. This paper contributes to the discussion through the description of the Design Methods and Processes course at Alta Scuola Politecnica, an original educational experience jointly developed by Politecnico di Milano and Politecnico di Torino with a highly selected number of MS students from Architecture, Industrial Design and all branches of Engineering. After positioning this discussion with respect to the relevant literature, the paper describes the educational model of this course and the reflections made after 5 years of implementation. Students show to catch the essence of the design workflow thanks to the educational path structured as a problem-analysis-and-solving process. However, dealing with multi-disciplinary task demands a careful composition of students’ teams since it can positively/negatively affect the learning experience as well as students’ motivations.
Keywords: Design education, multi-disciplinary design, team working, educational background, design practice
