Down the Rabbit Hole: a situated approach to design education that facilitates socially responsible emergent designers

Authors

Samantha Edwards-Vandenhoek, University of Western Sydney
Katrina Sandbach, University of Western Sydney

Abstract

This paper is centred on the progressive curriculum and sustained positive impact of the Rabbit Hole – the University of Western Sydney's Bachelor of Design teaching studio. The award-winning Rabbit Hole is a unique learning environment, incorporating participatory design methods and a work integrated learning framework that facilitates situated learning experiences, where live projects with realworld outcomes bridge the gap between academia, community and industry. Through a series of case studies, this paper demonstrates how the Rabbit Hole utilises the transformative agency of its innovative design pedagogy to inspire and empower socially responsible emergent designers.

Keywords

Work integrated learning, participatory design, design advocacy, situated learning, design responsibility, visual communication pedagogy

DOI

https://doi.org/10.21606/learnxdesign.2013.040

Citation

Edwards-Vandenhoek, S.,and Sandbach, K.(2013) Down the Rabbit Hole: a situated approach to design education that facilitates socially responsible emergent designers, in Reitan, J.B., Lloyd, P., Bohemia, E., Nielsen, L.M., Digranes, I., & Lutnæs, E. (eds.), DRS // Cumulus: Design Learning for Tomorrow, 14-17 May, Oslo, Norway. https://doi.org/10.21606/learnxdesign.2013.040

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License