STUDIO-V

VIRTUAL CREATIVE DESIGN STUDIO

STUDIO-V is a special place for creative design. It is an accessible place where people from all disciplines can come together to tackle real problems that are situated in authentic contexts.

STUDIO-V is a novel virtual and hybrid studio established to make high impact design project and design learning outcomes for finding and solving tough problems found in professional practice – in the wild (Nespoli, Hurst, & Russell, 2018; Nespoli, Hurst, & Gero 2021).  The studio does this by making knowledge and expertise accessible to those engaging with messy, indeterminate, problematic situations[1] in practice through virtual technology.  A studio is created simultaneously in academia and practice where both worlds are bridged and the participants in each world are connected in real time.  This allows participants to access and engage with real problems in the contexts where they exist.  This central idea minimizes information and uncertainty loss experienced when situations are framed and defined (and sometimes solution ideas constructed) prior to them being presented to those tasked with addressing them.  This often occurs in both academic and practice worlds, and short-circuits the most important part of learning: to recognize opportunity and effectively initiate engagement with messy, indeterminate, problematic situations and the materials of the situation (Schön, 1985).

Participating in-situ design teams (student and/or employee) learn design by doing, by being coached (Schön, 1985) by clinical research faculty that possess both academic design research and accomplished design practice experience profiles.  This allows tacit knowledge (uncoded and abstract knowledge (Boisot, 1995; Henderson, 1998)) to be personally constructed (Polanyi, 1962), socially (Lave & Wenger 1991) and in the wild (Nespoli, Hurst, & Gero, 2021).

STUDIO-V aims to create a shared space for a meeting of the minds and for emerging social relationships and knowledge creation (Nonaka & Konno, 1998)  Implicit knowledge can therefore be shared and transferred by meaningful and effective means (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995) with the authentic situations acting as mediates to knowledge creation and transfer. The exercising of thoughtful, facilitated and disciplined reflective practice is a key feature of this studio design (Schön, 1983). 

Longer periodic virtual and hybrid (virtual and in-situ) engagements have also been conducted in international settings where global, cultural and societal elements play an important part in the overall design activity (Nespoli, Hurst, & Russell, 2018).

Benefits of the virtual studio for employers and students is ready virtual and hybrid access to design and design coaching expertise for tough problems situated in real practice contexts.