Month: December 2020

  • Discovering the Smallest Particle of Design and how that Pleases Santa

    Discovering the Smallest Particle of Design and how that Pleases Santa

    A bit of a festive post to end the year on how the smallest atom of design is and Santa are related. But first: What is the smallest possible particle of design process? At The Open University Design Group, this question has baffled at least one design education researcher for at least a minute. In […]

  • Meaningful participation through digital engagement

    When COVID19 forced us to retreat into our social bubbles and our homes, the government needed to make plans so that people could still participate in planning matters that concerned them. Therefore, they issued emergency planning procedure guidelines for local authorities to ‘make any temporary amendments that are necessary to allow plan-making to progress, and […]

  • Design education in the open

    Design education in the open

    In the recently published edition of the Open Arts Journal, Nigel Cross, Emeritus Professor of Design and myself have written a review of design education at the Open University in the past 50 years of teaching. The challenge for Nigel and his contemporaries, in the 1970s was to find a way to teach design to […]

  • An Extra Slice: Thinking through cakes & cities with images

    An Extra Slice: Thinking through cakes & cities with images

    An extra slice? Yes, an extra slice. This is perhaps an odd thing to write in this blog, but I genuinely think An Extra Slice: The Great British Bake Off is one of the best and hilariously entertaining tv-formats of this decade. I belief it is better than the bake-off itself. The programme somehow manages […]

  • Shifting the design curriculum

    Shifting the design curriculum

      First, a note on the accompanying pictures of constructions by two distinguished woman artists, Mary Martin and Gillian Wise. Sadly Gillian succumbed to C19 in April this year. Mary Martin belonged to the previous generation. Gillian’s public artwork at the Barbican, on the staircase down to the cinema, may be familiar from OU London […]

  • Two Barriers to Inclusive Design

    Two Barriers to Inclusive Design

    Inclusive Design is broadly defined as the advocacy for and participation of often overlooked or marginalised people in the design process.  While the concepts of participation, inclusion, fairness, and accessibility seem well known in our everyday, there seem to be significant barriers to their use in design projects. Amongst others, two barriers are proposed below […]

  • Reducing carbon from older buildings: the need for holistic heritage approaches or… hot water bottles, curtains and lifecycle carbon

    Reducing carbon from older buildings: the need for holistic heritage approaches or… hot water bottles, curtains and lifecycle carbon

    My research is investigating ways to reduce carbon emissions from residential heritage buildings while retaining their heritage values. It is generally acknowledged that many more buildings can be considered heritage buildings than merely those designated in planning as listed or in conservation areas. It is unclear how many buildings fall into the ‘heritage category’ but it […]