The unit encourages learners to question the roles of form, function, culture, context and concept in relation to materials, techniques and processes and to reflect on their own distinctive approach to design.
Work produced for this unit should be in the learner’s own design specialism and may take the form of case studies, critical essays and practical projects that demonstrate an understanding of these issues and develop personal interpretations of them.
Learners will find that in practice, these areas are not always distinct from each other and that one can interweave another eg an investigation of the relationship between form and function might raise issues around truth to materials.
This is a realistic reflection of the ever-shifting emphasis that design has in a socio-cultural context that is constantly being reinvented by technological advances, globalisation, mass media and the emergence of internet-based communities that straddle the traditional place, language and ethnicity.
- Teacher: Arnaldo James