Openness In Design Education From Open Software To Open Hardware

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Paul Cardini
Rhode Island School of Design

Openness In Design Education From Open Software To Open Hardware

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Over the last 20 years, terms such as Free Software and Open Source are populating our digital experience. Other than small ideological distinctions, both are defined as the legal freedom to use, study, distribute and modify a piece of software (Stallman, 1985). In the beginning, these terms were attributed exclusively to computer code. Today, however, the idea of free access is applied to a wide variety of meaning and contexts. In 2010 Ronen Kadushin coined the term Open Design, inaugurating what later would be identified as the transfer of this open philosophy from software to hardware and subsequently to product design. In this new environment, project sharing is the key to speeding up the innovation process, and promoting a broader access to products through self-production. Within this panorama, a new typology of designers is taking shape: the “Remixers”. A Remixer is someone, not necessarily a designer, who is comfortable with a new design process that doesn’t start from scratch but utilizes existing open material, builds upon it, and sets up a mutual exchange with the global community. The Web became indeed the ideal marketplace for this new approach, representing the place where resources are stocked and shared. The Digital Natives, or the Net.Generation (Junco, Reynol; Mastrodicasa, Jeanna, 2007), are the main users of this huge amount of material available on the Internet’s infinite shelves. So far, great attention has been dedicated to educating students to surf smoothly between the on-line waves, to conduct appropriate research, to be able to judge between truth and lies, and to wisely use the full potential of big data. What has not been taught to them yet, however, is how to deal with this open and free new context. I’m speaking about growing sharing skills, helping them to reconsider their idea of property, and to look at the Global arena as a sustainable advantage. A new paradigm should be added then to the design education agenda to prepare students to front this openness.

Year: 2016