A blog about design at the OU.
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About the privilege of learning through mistakes
This blog post is about how I learn from making mistakes. We tell our first-year design students that it is essential not to dismay when they make mistakes. In fact, making a mistake and reflecting on why this mistake happened (and possibly how to avoid it next time) is the best that can happen to […]
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‘UK Makerspace – make things, do stuff and knit the community together’
Over a decade ago the term Makerspace, Hackerspace or Fablab would have been a relatively unknown term by the general populous. If the terms were understood then perhaps they would be thought of as niche or even geeky. Today the term Makerspace, Hackerspace or Fablab are more commonly known and to date there are over […]
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The Guide to Creating Distance Design Courses is finally here!
As part of our work to support design educators transposing to online and distance teaching, we’ve created a guide for Creating Distance Design Courses, which is now available here: https://distancedesigneducation.com/creating-distance-design-courses/ It took a bit longer than expected (it started out as a blog post but ended up being a 20k word monster!), so there’s a […]
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Redesigning major infrastructure projects for a post Covid19 world
As lockdown measures ease many people are wondering what will life be like post Covid19. Will there be a new normal in which society operates in profoundly different ways with less travel for example, more online meetings and working at home. Or will it be a little like when we take a holiday, we return […]
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Fieldwork is Fun!?
I’m researching ways to reduce carbon emissions from residential heritage buildings while retaining their heritage values. I’m focussing on Cumbria and the Lake District National Park and before the small matter of coronavirus prevented all activities I was halfway through my fieldwork. My fieldwork is made up of visits to residential buildings across Cumbria and […]
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Patterns of invention, design and innovation – the case of vacuum cleaners
Today almost all households in industrialised countries have at least one vacuum cleaner. But after World War Two the adoption of vacuum cleaners was surprisingly slow, and it was not until 1955 that half of British ones owned one. The main reason was that a vacuum cleaner, even if bought on hire purchase, was beyond […]
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Europe’s first eco-mosque
I visited the Abu Bakr Siddiq Mosque in December 2005 during the Mill Road Winter Fair. They welcomed me in for mint tea and sweet treats, while my highly-excited small daughters had their hands tattooed with henna. At that point this was the only mosque in Cambridge, attached to the end of a Victorian terrace. […]
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The design opportunities in a crisis
It seems to be a little inappropriate to talk about ‘opportunity’ when you think about the current health crisis. The first association between these two words might be that of profiteering. But having had a good look at design and technology related news over the last weeks, I could mainly see other, more altruistic, design […]
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Using remote and onscreen laboratories in online learning
As many Universities need to quickly move their learning online during the current coronavirus crisis, we have received many questions about our remote and virtual laboratories. This blog collects together useful information about our OpenSTEM Labs and provides links to online resources. This blog is a working document and was last updated on 20th November […]
