Experiencing ideation

The workshop's objective is to offer a hands-on, studio-based experience of generating and communicating ideas for a specific purpose using a range of ideation tools, viz, words, sketching, modelling and computing. Through this multi-sensory creative engagement - where emphasis is laid not only on the appearance of surfaces but contrasting effectss of solids, voids and textures the participant ideators become author, director and producer of their own thoughts and ideas.The ideas are then presented and shared in a joint session. This is in contrast to "brainstorming", a group-thinking activity where the participants are asked to come up with as many new ideas as possible to a given problem within a short period using words only, and often on post-it notes which are then shared. In short, the ideation workshop encourages the participants to engage the full range of human senses to become experimental designers through their own experiments, rather than just "talking design".

Digital dependency

Today, design is an activity infused with a wide range of technology from CAD and the Internet to big data and social media. As a result, a series of complex interactions of people, places and data are creating, planning and building environments with the help of digital tools. Digital interactions, then, produce data that feed the creative industries and design ideation. Using digital tools have enabled designers to generate and communicate more realistically ideas and visions of possible futures. But as data is increasingly used as both tool and motive for design work, there are concerns. For example, CAD and 3D printing highlight the digital dependency on visualising and communicating ideas whereas social media question what happens to interpersonal interaction in built environments where virtual and real phenomena compete for attention. In this context, the ideation workshop offers an opportunity to gain greater awareness of the role and use of ideation tools in the digital culture.