Reinventing
design education
Questioning design education
Born with the industrial revolution, design has been instrumental in building imaginative representations spawned by this drastic changes, but also endeavored to answer essential questions : how can beauty be produced with machines? How can objects, spaces, signs and gestures in our living spaces be optimised? How can these objects and spaces be made infinitely desirable?
The Industrial and Technology Revolutions, fuelled by the illusion of our technical supremacy and endless growth, are now coming up against the reality of a finite and brutalised world, whose living beings – including humans – are the victims.
Design schools, for the most part, have contributed to these illusions by training professionals expected by the system.
Most private design schools are falling one after the other into the hands of pension funds more concerned with the profitability of their investments than with their students, and Public design schools are struggling to take in more people, leaving the “market” to private schools, and are threatened with extinction due to their unsustainable economic model.
In both cases, the impact of design on transforming the world is more than limited.
Does this mean that we should abandon the original Enlightenment project of emancipation and social harmony? Shouldn't we rather learn from 250 years of modern intoxication and finally train the designers this world needs and share the culture of design?
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... and create the design schools of the 21st century!
It is therefore time to create and establish the design schools that the world needs, schools that take on global challenges, focused on creating value and building connections.
It is time for higher education to create the conditions conducive to the emergence of properly trained players capable of delivering on the promises of excellence and professionalisation while embracing social diversity.
It is time to create 21st century design schools, driven by cross-disciplinary methodologies and practices, a culture of the project, which by essence is what design is all about.
Universities must once again become THE one and only place for professional design training.
This project is possible.
This project is necessary.
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Design in U: towards a network of university design schools
The ambition of We Design Design School is to contribute to the creation of a new network of university design schools, schools rooted in their local areas, schools that may be thematic but share the same approach, all inspired by CY Design School, created within CY Cergy Paris University.
More than a discipline, design is a project culture, embodied by demanding professionals whose mission is to help create the conditions for successful life experiences for each and every one of us, today and tomorrow.
This is our definition of 21st-century design, considered as the necessary culture of transformation, a culture of care, a culture of responsibility, shared by all those involved in design, designers and all the others as well.
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