design

Design: between political and critical stakes. A think-tank and project-factory for affirming a view of what design is, and what it can contribute to society.

The isdaT design course has been devised with this affirmation in mind. The course gives access to fields of knowledge dealing with all contemporary societal contexts, and fosters openness towards a wide range of practices, whether these are orientated towards research or various professional activities. Through a transdisciplinary mode, social, political and economic problematics are developed, revolving around the notions of “humanity” and “fabrication”.

The contexts in which design applies are continually diversified in a society experiencing constantly accelerating heterogeneous and complex transformations. Teaching design is therefore not only limited to the traditional fields of object and space, but deals with determining concepts and questions that are currently in debate. It develops a corpus of scientific and critical ideas, methodologies and tools, which probe the conditions of existence (local / global / “glocal”) and the states of being of individuals in the world. Associated with related disciplines (art, architecture, town planning, landscape, etc.) or distant ones (biology, neurosciences, etc.), it engages in exploring established, emerging or prospective practices, which question the notion of scales, temporalities and economies, enabling experimentation on the diverse range of materialities and modes of production involved in projects.

In this sense, the isdaT develops a dialectical approach, through its association with institutions (universities, art centres, Institute of the City…), associations and craft-related organisms.