Re-learning Design: Pedagogical Experiments with STS in Design Studio Courses Introduction

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Ignacio Farías
Tomás Sánchez Criado

Abstract

In the last decades, design disciplines have been encountering the social sciences and humanities in inventive modes. These new collaborations entail partial redefinitions of the disciplines involved therein. On the one hand, contemporary strands of social and cultural theory – especially in the field of science and technology studies (STS), but also in anthropology – have made design much more than a mere research object. On the other hand, design disciplines have incorporated not only social research methods and ethnography, but also the type of conceptual work characteristic of social and cultural theory. This has led to a series of redefinitions of current design practices beyond the ‘problem-solving’ of user-centered design, design thinking or co-design approaches. In contrast to these current trends, some designers are increasingly describing their tasks as forms of ‘problem-making’.

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How to Cite
Farías, I., & Sánchez Criado, T. (2018). Re-learning Design: Pedagogical Experiments with STS in Design Studio Courses: Introduction. Diseña, (12), 14–29. https://doi.org/10.7764/disena.12.14-29
Section
Original Research Articles Introduction
Author Biographies

Ignacio Farías, Technical University of Munich

B.A. in Sociology, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. D.E.A. in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Universidad de Barcelona. PhD in European Ethnology, Humboldt University. Assistant Professor at the Munich Center for Technology in Society and the Architecture Department of Technical University Munich. His work is centered on urban studies, studies on science and technology and cultural anthropology. He has recently co-edited, together with Alex Wilkie, Studio Studies. Operations, Topologies & Displacements (Routledge, 2015) and, together with Anders Blok, the special issue “Technical Democracy as a Challenge to Urban Studies” (CITY, vol. 20, N° 4), and Urban Cosmopolitics: Agencements, Assemblies, Atmospheres (Routledge, 2016).

Tomás Sánchez Criado, Technical University of Munich

B.A. in Psychology, D.E.A. and PhD in Social Anthropology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Senior Researcher at the Munich Center for Technology in Society and the Architecture Department of the Technical University Munich. His areas of interest include social anthropology, science and technology studies, and disability studies. Some of his more recent publications are: Experimental Collaborations: Ethnography Through Fieldwork Devices (co-edited with A. Estalella, Berghahn, 2018) and ‘Urban Accessibility Issues: Technoscientific Democratizations at the Documentation Interface’ (with M. Cereceda, CITY, vol. 20, n.° 4).