• Soft Skills

The educational objective of the Laboratory is to acquire project skills for medium complexity industrial products. The design process develops from the conceptualization phase to the executive development and technical representation of the product, in a perspective of innovation based on aspects of form, use and interaction with the user, in addition to technological application and manufacturing. The Laboratory also programmes, in addition to some lectures, a wide project activity carried out in groups and supported by inspections carried out by the professors with the purpose of team building.

Students:
- knowledge and understanding: know and understand the methods for managing the whole development process for new industrial products (conception, representation, material choice and engineering) and can manage the technical-design aspects for the whole process;
- making judgements: can integrate the skills they acquired during the various theory contributions received and apply them to managing project complexity; can formulate project choices based on informed, responsible, and available information;
- communication skills: autonomously and in groups, students can develop the ability to present and discuss their projects and the attitude to negotiation and teamwork.

The Design Studio will deal with the development of innovative products, focusing on two aspects:
• levers – available for designers - to achieve innovation (form, mode of use and technology)
• methodologies and tools for project documentation and management.

The aim of the workshop is that students learn from one hand to recognize and use the three levers for the development of their project and, on the other hand, to prove and submit their design intentions unambiguously, using technical drawings (ensemble and details) and three-dimensional models.

To achieve this, the first part of the Design Studio will provide the necessary basic skills. In particular, the levers will be analyzed in one exercise lasting four-weeks. As for the technical documentation of the project, there will be a series of lectures and practical exercises in which students will be asked to do freehand drawings and computer models.

In the second part of the Design Studio students will practice those skills through an full design exercise. The aim of the exercise will be to redesign a medium-complexity product.

The output will be the final design of the product, documented by technical drawings and CAD models, ensemble and details.

As part of the Design Studio, students should:
- develop skills to tackle the expressive features of product, within a feasible range and with emphasis on the production phase that is considered the creative-act execution;

- develop skills to describe the project in three-dimensional representation that can "configure" the product and "validate" the mass-production manufacturing of it;

- apply a design method that starts from an highly creative assumption and takes into account the technique and production as a means of enhancing the expressive value of the product.

Teachers will provide all the information on the contents during the theoretical lectures and project reviews.

Students will work in group and will be supported with lectures and activity to develop their teamwork skills.

There are no pre-requisites for attendance.

Students’ evaluation is based on the average of grades given to each single exercise, plus a final qualitative assessment of their participation and progress during the course.