Connective Environments: Towards Interdisciplinary Pedagogical Models for Design of Networked, Interactive, Participatory Systems

Abstract

The integration of digital media into the curricula of design and architecture schools raises important pedagogical questions as to what kind of technical skills and what kind of critical thinking should designers of future interactive systems have and how these skills and mindsets should be cultivated. This paper argues for a pedagogical model for the design of intelligent environments that sees designers and architects as engineers, humanists, system thinkers, and researchers. The paper presents these ideas through the case of a new graduate course that introduces design, prototyping, programming and evaluation of physical telepresence media for individual or collective interactions with and through the built environment. The course was offered as a core course to a dual MSc degree program in Architecture and Information Technology and it aimed to cultivate three skills: an engineering ingenuity; a critical understanding of information and computation; and a technical skillset of network-based communications for connecting people, objects, and places. The discussion concludes with teaching experiences and future directions for development.