The Use of Open Briefs in Design Skills Development

Year: 2009
Editor: Clarke, A, Ion, W, McMahon, C and Hogarth, P
Author: Collins, Annick
Section: COLLABORATIVE DESIGN
Page(s): 73-78

Abstract

To succeed in today's rapidly evolving industry, the designer has to be versatile, explore, discover and implement in the interest of the client. How can the nature of the design industry environment be embedded in engineering design education? This paper discusses one approach, by which third/fourth year undergraduate Mechanical Engineering students at Imperial College London are set a live design challenge by an international design and innovation consultancy with the author giving the course. The students work in teams and the challenge provides an opportunity to explore socially responsible design collaboratively. A mentoring arrangement between the company and the students builds up relationships between clients, consultants and students. This paper explores the design challenge, its background, the course that it supports and the effectiveness of open design briefs to develop engineering design skills for an evolving industry

Keywords: Collaborative design, design challenge, social, innovation, open-ended design brief