DESIGN AS A SOCIAL ACTIVITY AND STUDENTS ’ CONCEPT OF DESIGN

A design and product realization program was started at KTH in Stockholm in the second semester of 2003 and more than 100 students enrolled for the course. This paper presents the experience gained from the first semester of the program-specific course “Perspectives on design and product realization.” The planning and realization of the course drew on the general view that design engineering is a social activity, and so focused on teamwork, collaboration, openness, and interest. The students ’ project involved a high degree of synthesis, and produced very good results. A study of the students ’ concept of design revealed that they regard it as mainly concerned with aesthetics. It also revealed that a majority of them accept and embrace the idea of becoming a design engineer. However, they want a substantial part of their education to deal with aesthetics, art fundamentals, sketching, and the like