Do designers need a studio?

The workshop is based on the art and design tradition and the premise that the participants have access to studio space, that is, a workplace for conceiving, designing and developing new products or objects. Yet ideation takes place in many places, not just in the studio - so why the need of a studio at the ideation stage of the design process? However, the physical studio matters, notwithstanding the rise of virtual space denoted by the internet, and both as medium (VR) and place, as the studio provides designers with necessary physical space for hands-on practice where they can test their ideas and carry out real experiments, with real tools and real materials, in real time. Moreover, the studio provides a collaborative space where designers can be in close proximity to their fellow designers - a physical presence that encourages face-to-face communication and the building of studio culture. However, in the digital age, the physical space of the studio typically interacts with the virtual space of the internet, as exemplified by online tools or social networking sites. Such tools or sites can facilitate dissemination and sharing of information and ideas but also make virtual pushes into physical spaces. Yet virtual interaction cannot replace physical interaction when creating ideas and so the studio remains core to designer activity, and across disciplines. Or, to quote Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple: 'There’s a temptation in our networked age to think that ideas can be developed by email and iChat. That’s crazy. Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings, from random discussions. You run into someone, you ask what they’re doing, you say ‘wow,’ and soon you’re cooking up all sorts of ideas.'