Abstract
Increasing numbers of students, limited space, and decreasing budgets nudge many university administrators to shift from assigned design studio desks to flexible workspace arrangements. This paper explores student attachment to the individual desk and shared spaces in a graduate design studio in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University. The studio had four interconnected spaces with: individual desks, collaborative workspaces, a kitchen-social cafe area, and a distance- learning classroom. We explored student perspectives and attitudes on studio aesthetics, functionality, agency, ownership, personalization, and occupancy patterns with four methods (i.e., online survey, student class schedules, interviews, time-lapse study). Perception of ownership, personalization, and agency were greatest for individual desks. Students perceived the individual desk as a primary territory even though the administration said desks were shared hot-desks. Individual work and collaborative work occurred throughout the studio regardless of functional assignment (e.g., spaces for individual work, collaboration, classroom).
Keywords
design studio; ownership; personalization; place attachment
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2016.259
Citation
Scupelli, P., and Hanington, B. (2016) Design Studio Desk and Shared Place Attachments: A Study on Ownership, Personalization, and Agency., in Lloyd, P. and Bohemia, E. (eds.), Future Focused Thinking - DRS International Conference 2016, 27 - 30 June, Brighton, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2016.259
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Design Studio Desk and Shared Place Attachments: A Study on Ownership, Personalization, and Agency.
Increasing numbers of students, limited space, and decreasing budgets nudge many university administrators to shift from assigned design studio desks to flexible workspace arrangements. This paper explores student attachment to the individual desk and shared spaces in a graduate design studio in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University. The studio had four interconnected spaces with: individual desks, collaborative workspaces, a kitchen-social cafe area, and a distance- learning classroom. We explored student perspectives and attitudes on studio aesthetics, functionality, agency, ownership, personalization, and occupancy patterns with four methods (i.e., online survey, student class schedules, interviews, time-lapse study). Perception of ownership, personalization, and agency were greatest for individual desks. Students perceived the individual desk as a primary territory even though the administration said desks were shared hot-desks. Individual work and collaborative work occurred throughout the studio regardless of functional assignment (e.g., spaces for individual work, collaboration, classroom).