Rethinking Design Education: What should a progressive D-School Curriculum look like?

UNESCO recently emphasized through the web article the importance of lifelong learning while taking an interdisciplinary approach in the preparation of the students for the complexity that lies ahead. This has therefore made it urgent to revisit higher education with regard to disciplines as the world navigates rapid technological, environmental, and social changes.

Within such a rapidly changing context, by 2030, the role of design schools around the world would be completely different from what it is today. Most design programs focus on theoretical notions and outdated cases, further pushing the student to master tools and techniques like typography and sketching.

On the other hand, the demand for designers who can create systems to solve complex challenges is growing. Indeed, the whole industry of design is changing-from one centered on sketching, ergonomics, and prototyping toward one which must make room for new subjects such as artificial intelligence, bio-design, extended reality, robotics, and sustainability technologies, now part of the new must-haves in a creative curriculum.

The top design schools of the world, like MIT Media Lab (USA), L'École de design Nantes Atlantique (France), Parsons School of Design (USA), Royal College of Art (UK), Stanford d.school (USA), and The Design Village (India), are already taking long strides to adapt themselves to these changes, and the transition needs to be emulated by other design schools around the world. In the future, the curriculum at d-school will have to adopt a different framework with a focus on: Transdisciplinary knowledge in the preparation of designers for the increasingly complex, interconnected problems of today's world requires a way of knowing and practicing inclusive of methods and perspectives on technology, social sciences, environmental studies, and the arts.

Big Data: inform design decisions through big data analysis and testing of its impact. Robotics: understand technology, create interactions for adaptive systems, wearables, and responsive environments. Ethics and Policy: The rapid transformation of the creative industry, together with recognition of the design process in non-creative industries, will require design schools to institutionalize courses related to IP rights, legal implications of creative work, policy-sensitive design, and ethical literacy, among others. New Material & Fabrication Practices: By 2030, design schools will have to turn the focus of regular material and prototyping courses toward such themes as circular materials, computational fabrication, net-zero prototyping, and embedding of sustainability metrics. Future courses will have to stress both 'creative' and 'critical' lenses whereby students test ideas and explore material behavior but also understand ecological, ethical, and technological implications of production. Not until global d-schools rise to this extended role of designers will the world be able to harness the power of design.