Pixel points

© 2003 Bharat DaveThe increasing adoption of digital media in design education also leads to subtle changes in design objectives, means, and outcomes in that process. Such changes are due to the peculiar nature of digital representations and operations that allow us to manipulate representations. With only a few decades of collective developments and experiences in digitally supported design education, it is not surprising that we still frame and reflect on these changes in only a provisional fashion. This paper reviews changes in design pedagogy and highlights emergence of a new design sensibility in ways of designing, that which is designed, and ways designs are communicated. In order to integrate such conceptual shifts in design education, we draw partially upon studies in traditional representations, media and architectural design that trace lineage of contemporary western architectural educational pedagogies to the earlier ones, to Bauhaus, Beaux-Arts and the master apprentice systems in antiquity. However, we also recognize that digital media are fundamentally different from traditional ones and call for new pedagogical strategies that in various guises complement, substitute or completely displace traditional modes of design exploration, development, documentation and communication