Space & Materials: A Second Year Design Curriculum.

Design students provide a constant source of energy that moves into the mainstream of society. Their energy needs to be directed toward improving the characteristics of the built environment at every physical and economic scale of activity. Teaching design involves a broad range of decisions on how to present relevant design education content to students. This paper focuses on a design curriculum. The paper also discusses the structure of a design curriculum, considers second year design issues, ponders how to structure an investigation into the issues, examines the evolution of conceptions of space, and outlines a concept of materials. It concludes that if an educational program is going to have a chance of successfully stimulating students to create alternative environmental proposals, it must imbue them with a powerful sense of mission and a belief in the possibility of changing the pieces of the world that they encounter. (Contains a 12-item bibliography.) (BT)