Courses - Faculty of Creative Arts And Industries
Design
Stage I
Design Methods and Processes 1
Introduces students to key tools, methods and processes of design planning, strategy and practice. Students learn to apply design thinking and technologies to real world contexts and issues. A course of studio–based study focused on a series of creative, hands-on projects and supported by lectures. The emphasis is on human-centred design and interventions.
Why We Design
Investigates design as a driver and responder to social needs in contemporary and historic contexts. Students will understand relevant technologies and their contexts. The course explicitly considers planetary limits and sustainability, as well as design and business considered in a social-technological, tikanga Māori, financial, cultural-ethical and environmental context.
Design Futures
New opportunities are continually emerging in the field of design. This course demonstrates how contemporary design practices have evolved, responded to and influenced change. Students learn how a design approach complements current practice and expands career prospects.
Stage II
Design Methods and Processes 2
An intermediate studio-based programme in which students develop a customised design strategy in response to a real-world issue. By working on a detailed case study, students learn to address local issues and engage with the local design community. Students present their design solutions, and learn to pitch design concepts and evaluate potential outcomes.
Prerequisite: DESIGN 100, 101
Creative Communities
Students analyse and discuss the ‘design difference’ by understanding design as both problem and (potential) solution to one or more identified social issues. Attention is paid to the economic and ethical implications of design with emphasis on value chains and Triple Bottom Line practices.
Prerequisite: DESIGN 100, 101
Indigeneity and Place
Communication technologies and economic forces are reshaping the ways in which individuals, societies and nations define themselves. In today’s global society, what does it mean to belong to a specific place or participate in a specific culture and how might Māori culture locate itself within this global context? Using immersive forms such as video, animation, gaming and/or VR-AR, students will explore their identity—personally, experientially and culturally—in relation to place.
Prerequisite: DESIGN 100, 101
New Zealand’s Narratives
What were New Zealand’s stories, Māori and European? Who got to tell them and why? How have these narratives evolved? How do today’s narratives reflect and constitute culture? In this course, students will address these questions by developing and communicating messages, narratives and experiences across a range of media (traditional and digital) with an emphasis on twenty-first century communication via app-based and social media forms.
Prerequisite: DESIGN 100, 101
Data, Design and Rhetoric
Data is a valuable resource but can be overwhelming. Economists have used data to influence public policy, but this is changing as data becomes more widely available and informs decision-making more broadly. Students will learn to produce data-driven arguments about a local issue. Using Micro Strategy they will create databases and visualisation concepts (design) and tools (software) to present persuasive design cases.
Prerequisite: DESIGN 100, 101
Design Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship and design are equally characterised by open inquiry, trial and error and a view of failure as integral to the creative process. Students will study entrepreneurship in creative industries, focusing on the role of strategic design in the start-up and operation of companies. They will examine entrepreneurial design practice within organisations (intrepreneurship) and tools and strategies for organisational innovation.
Prerequisite: DESIGN 100, 101
Design and Social Responsibility
Metrics for success differ between profit-making and non-profit organisations. In this course, students will learn how Triple Bottom Line models measure the wider impact and the social responsibilities of all types of organisation. By studying business cases they will understand how design methods and strategies can help any enterprise to develop practices that are socially, financially and environmentally responsible.
Prerequisite: DESIGN 100, 101
Design and Legal Concepts
Introduction to core legal concepts of significance to the commercial success and social value of design such as patent, trademark, copyright, cultural ownership, agency and client confidentiality and the importance of these to social and commercial legal issues.
Prerequisite: DESIGN 100, 101
Design and Healthy Communities
Students will investigate how selected design interventions contribute to the health and wellbeing of individuals and communities in a range of cultural and political contexts. Students will then present fair and feasible design strategies for challenging scenarios that involve both physical and digital technologies.
Prerequisite: DESIGN 100, 101
The Future of Work and Play
Students will analyse how technological advances such as artificial intelligence and augmented reality impact the way we work and play now and in the future. Using gamification strategies, students will develop fictional scenarios in order to test a range of design concepts intended for future deployment.
Prerequisite: DESIGN 100, 101
Smart Homes and Cities
Working in collaboration with a local civic or non-governmental agency, students will create a series of case studies and concept visualisations to demonstrate how future homes and cities may operate dynamically and sustainably through connected system of interfaces and services.
Prerequisite: DESIGN 100, 101
Design and the Natural Environment
Contemporary designers and local organisations are challenged to develop both disruptive and responsible design approaches that have only positive impacts on the natural environment. Students will engage in case study research before designing candidate solutions and criteria for measuring the local and global impact of design interventions.
Prerequisite: DESIGN 100, 101
Designing with Data
Students will experiment with tools to access, analyse, process, visualise and interact with a range of data sources. Students will produce provocative data-driven simulations that support decision making and promote a call-to-action related to a foreseeable local or global crisis.
Prerequisite: DESIGN 100, 101
Designing Mixed Realities
What new materials, products and processes will be developed at the interface between the virtual and the physical? Students will work in interdisciplinary teams to experiment with technologies that will augment the human experience in responsive hybrid environments.
Prerequisite: DESIGN 100, 101
Design and Autonomous Technology
What are the major social, ethical and technical trends driving the adoption of autonomous technologies and artificial intelligence? Students will work in interdisciplinary teams to produce a prototypical device that is designed to have autonomous capabilities in service of human advancement or ecology.
Prerequisite: DESIGN 100, 101
Design and Assistive Technologies
Students will investigate current and past design work that has successfully improved or extended human movement, sensation or mental capacity for a range of individuals and communities using assistive technologies. Students will experiment with a range of physical and digital technologies to design a tangible assistive or rehabilitative device using speculative design methods.
Prerequisite: DESIGN 100, 101
Stage III
Design Research Methodologies
Introduction to a range of key design methodologies that inform contemporary design thinking, research and practice, within New Zealand, with reference to Māori philosophies of making and community. Drawing on methodological principles, students learn how to develop design strategies, apply design processes and test their design concepts. Consideration will be given to the phasing and planning of design investigations from data analytics to design concepts to practical methods and proposed solutions.
Prerequisite: DESIGN 100, 101 and 90 points from DESIGN 200-243
Advanced Design Methods Capstone
An advanced course in which students complete a major design project in collaboration with a local design professional. The task is to develop a design strategy in response to a real-world issue. Students will engage in research and practical studio work; use multiple tools, technologies and methods; and work in teams. Outcomes will be exhibited, and critiqued by design professionals.
Prerequisite: DESIGN 200, 201, 300 and 90 points from DESIGN 210-243
Critical-Technical Positioning
An advanced course in which students produce a written account of their capstone project (DESIGN 301). The account will take the form of a 5,000 word essay or technical report, with visual evidence. It will provide a critical contextualisation of the capstone project within the field of design, and use design theory to describe the project from concept to execution.
Prerequisite: DESIGN 200, 201, 300
Corequisite: DESIGN 301
