John Darzentas and Jenny Darzentas
This contribution reflects on the work carried out over 25 years in the genesis and running of the Department of Product and Systems Design Engineering of the University of the Aegean, the evolution of the curriculum as flow, and the currents that have prevailed. Key notions include pluralism (not dogmatism) and holistic-systemic (not reductionistic), and the recognition of the centrality of constructivism in whatever form seems appropriate.
The initiation of such a venture felt justified because of the increasing acknowledgement of the complexity of the global challenges, which could not be ignored anymore, and the interest in the design world to play a role and see these challenges as tractable also with design methodologies and tools, although this was not made explicit until later (EU, 20091).
Recently the design domain seeks to include and utilise specialist knowledge of appropriate technology along with theoretical grounding. The discussion around the role of design in these challenges began with an international workshop (Sept 2000) on the island of Syros, Greece, with a brief to discuss the curriculum of a modern Design School, where systemic approaches to the current thinking about design, in research and practice, would guide the activities.
From that preliminary work, a programme of study emerged that would be based on three pillars: Art, Computer-aided Design (CAD), and Interaction and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). These have reformed and changed over the years, changing titles, and are currently called Shape and Colour, Interactive System Design, Engineering Design, Complex Systems, and Service Design. Still, the emphasis remains on the holistic, with students required to take courses from all three pillars or directions.
A notable feature of the trajectory of the department’s character was and still is the very interesting trial to get staff (and students) to move out from their disciplinary comfort zones and open themselves to other disciplines. What emerged was a gradual move from multidisciplinarity (co-existence) to interdisciplinarity (learning from each other) to transdisciplinarity (embracing and absorbing) with the resulting emergence of approaches, methods and tools, and roots that can be traced back to many traditions.
In this trajectory, transdisciplinary learning is the exploration of a relevant concept, issue or problem that integrates the perspectives of multiple disciplines in order to connect new knowledge and deeper understanding to real-life experiences. Our stated mission from the outset, was that a design department should be producing graduate and postgraduate professionals who are able to identify with the transdisciplinarity of the domain and the new knowledge emerging from it as well as the grounding of that knowledge.
In our mission, holistic and systemic thinking in design offered the major vehicle and thinking tool for grounding approaches and methodologies and structuring ways towards appropriate and actionable interventions. It continues to do so, with specific courses on systemic design—such as Systemic Thinking in Design, Complex and Interactive Organizations Theory—or other courses infused with systemic design—Theories and Methods of Design, Interaction Design, Service Design, Information Design, Design for All.
Eurpean Union. 2009. Design as a driver of user-centred innovation. Monitor: Commission staff working document. https://www.eumonitor.nl/9353000/1/j9vvik7m1c3gyxp/vi7jgtbfxvzl
Profiles
John Darzentas is Emeritus Professor, University of the Aegean. He is the founder and the first Head of the Department of Product and Systems Design Engineering. Over his long career in academia, he has published work in many disciplines, including mathematics and statistics, operational research, fuzzy logic, simulation, information systems and design. He has held lectureships and professorships in various Universities in Europe and in Greece (Universities of London, Reading and South Bank in the UK) as well as visiting professorships (University of Thessalia, Athens University of Economics, University of Athens, Abo Akademi University, Finland, etc.) and most recently, he was awarded a Leverhulme Vising Professorship at the University of York in the UK. He has been project manager and site leader in many EU and nationally funded projects, chair of conferences, and leader of many academic initiatives, such as the establishment of new and innovative courses, curricula, university departments (in the UK, Greece, and Cyprus), and other academic infrastructures. His research accommodates and utilises complexity.
From cssd.aegean.gr/john-darzentas/
Jenny Darzentas is an Assistant Professor, Service Design, in the Department of Product and Systems Design Engineering. She is passionate about inclusivity and accessibility, following a Design for All approach, which is determining from the outset that services and the products that are part of those services are designed in a holistic way as mainstream services that cater for a wide range of users and contexts of use. Many designers shun accessibility issues, so some of her research and teaching activity has been to encourage designers to engage with accessibility and understand it as a challenging and exciting area of research and development, that often engenders innovation.
Her interest in service design comes from her appreciation of its fairly recent emergence and organisation, and especially its preoccupation with topics such as new value systems and social innovation. This means that service design provides a fascinating area that can both accommodate accessibility as well as add pragmatic dimensions to it. In turn, service design, as a new discipline, offers many openings for theoretical frameworks and tools that can accommodate systems thinking approaches in design or systemic design. Such frameworks and tools help design to navigate and benefit from the complexity that holistic design methods generate.
Jenny is active in standardisation work at ISO and EU levels, participating in standards-making activities for the accessibility and safety of products and services for people with disabilities, especially cognitive disabilities, people who are older, and consumers with vulnerabilities in general.
Previously, Jenny was awarded a Marie Curie Experienced Fellowship 2016-2018, which she spent at the University of York, UK. She was an adjunct lecturer in the department from 2004–2016 and has also worked as a researcher on a variety of EU-funded projects dealing with human-centred aspects of systems for information management, HCI, Design for All, and accessibility.
From www.syros.aegean.gr
