My short trip to Italy last week turned out, like those of so many others, to be a prolonged stay, much of which I spent queuing frustratedly for ways to get home, hook or by crook across Europe. As I write, I’m on a train to passing through Turin to Paris. But it could have been worse. Milan is not a bad place to be stranded, especially during Milan Design Week.
Having to spend more time there than I thought I went to the Milan Design Week exhibitions on offer in via Ventura and Zona Tortona. The via Ventura shows from the RCA, the Design Academy Eindhoven and the Scuola Politecnica di Design and also emergent groups such as Art book Milan, were experimental with both conceptual and practical outcomes. The work in the Zona Tortona was much more to do with the commercial outcomes of design (mostly furniture) with very polished displays including that of our own Tom Dixon who showed some new chairs he had designed, but his show was dwarfed by the big furniture and lighting manufactures such as Kartell. I was quite surprised by how ordinary much of this commercial stuff was even in italy who have seemed to have lost much of the design initiative and flair they were so famous for. If there was one country that seem to excel across the board it was the work from the Netherlands who seem to work with ease between the experimental and the commercial with some very smart young designers. Pleased to see that rapid prototyping was being use extensively in a whole range of products and especially l’artisan electronique, by Belgium’s Unfold.
However, the purpose of my trip had been to deliver a lecture at Politecnico de Milano on Ravensbourne’s transformation. I was very useful for me to gauge the international academic community’s response to the changes we are undergoing at Ravensbourne. It was interesting that support for our change was high, but perceived as an Anglo Saxon response (which it is) to European traditions of higher education. Closer to the American view of what HE is for, rather than the mid European concern with scholarship almost for its own sake. Much interesting discussion followed on the role of technology, in particular the evolution in product and information design from GUI (graphical user interface) to NUI (natural user interface ) – touch screen, with its emphasis upon gesture. Something we encourage our students to explore particularly in our BA (Hons) Design (Interactions) and MA/MSc Interactive Product Futures courses at Ravensbourne.
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