Workshop culture

The 2020/21 virus pandemic put severe restrictions on face-to-face interaction in the workplace, not least in the physical design studio. As a result, many in-person activities and engagements shifted to remote working modes, that is, working from home, or online. Post-pandemic, then, will studio culture return to its former modus operandi of mixed, or hybrid mode - analogue and digital? Signs are that the upward digital studio trend will continue. If so, what happens to a studio-based design tradition, or culture that even before the pandemic was increasingly mediated by the computer or overshadowed by digital and social media? What happens to design ideation when influenced, if not relying on the abstractness of mass-media sources rather than the hands-on concreteness of the studio? Or, what happens to the effort of first-hand experience with a physical object, with its own scale and density as a thing in the world when computing, from CAD to AI fills the gap between imagination and reality?  If so, what might we lose in the process, and does it matter?

The empty studio?

Most designers would agree that it’s often the informal, unplanned interactions that matter most in the creative work environment. So, when working from home, as is the case during the current pandemic, how much are we missing by giving the physical studio up? What is lost in terms of not being able to communicate in person with colleagues or the sense of belonging to a team? Indeed does ideation require face-to-face interaction in the studio? To try to answer such questions requires an understanding of how designers interact in the studio, how they generate and communicate ideas or how they deal with practical concerns and decision making. That is, the thinking and behaviour that establish, develop and maintain any particular studio culture, real and/or virtual.