Last month, WDO Member Auburn University hosted SHiFT Design Sandbox, a design workshop that brought together designers and educators from across the US to engage in meaningful conversations around the future of design education. In the following article, organizers Benjamin Bush, Carly Hagins and Verena Paepcke-Hjeltness share an exclusive look inside workshop discussion, highlights and outcomes.

The original spark:

What might happen if passionate designers and educators are provided a space for gently facilitated conversations interspersed with fun and engaging activities? This was our vision in the creation of the SHiFT Design Sandbox.


Who are we?

We are three industrial design faculty and researchers who shake things up and reframe perspectives. We’ve been research co-conspirators for the past three years, and in that time have delivered paper presentations and workshops at several international conferences and have been published in numerous conference proceedings.

The organizers from left to right: Associate Professor Benjamin Bush, Assistant Professor Carly Hagins, Associate Professor Verena Paepcke-Hjeltness. Photo credit: Verena Paepcke-Hjeltness

Why we did it

We recognized a pattern when we traveled to conferences. We presented our work, listened to others, and if we were lucky, we shared some deep and meaningful conversations. Then the conference ended, and we all went back to everyday life.

We felt a need for candid yet productive conversations with meaningful outcomes in a friendly and supportive environment. We thought about who to bring together, where to do that and what would be a suitable umbrella under which to operate.

Benjamin Bush and Carly Hagins at the Auburn University McPherson Building in Birmingham, Alabama. Photo credit: Verena Paepcke-Hjeltness

Umbrella

Two of us have a longstanding history with the SHiFT Design Camps, originally founded by Auburn alumni Owen Foster and John McCabe in 2013. The goal of these events was to get designers out of the studio with the purpose of detaching from technology and reconnecting with one another. Previous SHiFT events were held in the woodlands of Tuscumbia, Alabama, the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the rolling greenscape of Foel Ortho, Wales. They included camping, games, exploratory hikes, inspiring speakers, and design challenges. For many, SHiFT is a place of community and belonging; a meaningful venue for rekindling and rejuvenating design spirits.We built our event on the shoulders of the original SHiFT camps with the goals to provide space for like-minded yet diverse people to create sparks for new ventures and collaborations.

 

Location

Auburn University’s newly renovated Hood McPherson building was the ideal location for the 2024 SHiFT Design Sandbox. The building is located in the center of downtown Birmingham, Alabama’s biggest city, and has two floors dedicated to the College of Architecture, Design and Construction (CADC) with a mission to engage the city with real world projects for practical, innovative outcomes. With generous grant support through the Expanding CADC Reach Grant and thoughtful guidance from CADC Research Manager Jessica Holmes, we were able to fund this event and invite a select group of people.

Event set-up. Photo credit: Verena Paepcke-Hjeltness

The Event | Day 1

On Friday evening, educators from across the nation converged on Birmingham, Alabama. The first hour was an opportunity to check-in. Attendees answered questions like, “How are you? No really, how are you?” “How’d the semester go?,” and even, “How is your family?” using sticky notes on posters that hung throughout the space. We also charted our career and life paths on a world map, and it was fascinating to see the connections that we didn’t know that we shared.

First activity, getting to know more about one another and finding connections. Photo credit: Verena Paepcke-Hjeltness

We intentionally avoided being overly prescriptive about the topics that would be discussed during SHiFT. Instead, our workshop was built in such a way that made it possible to mix and match conversational topics that mattered the most to our attendees.

Interview templates. Photo credit: Verena Paepcke-Hjeltness

The Event | Day 2

On Saturday morning local design professionals and high school educators joined SHiFT, doubling the number of attendees. How do we get people talking and learning about each other? Games! We assigned two guests that didn’t know one another to interview each other and document what they learned on a template. Then we shared it back with the group. Gold!

Participants were teamed up, interviewed each other and then introduced their partner. Photo credit: Greg Barnette

From there, we distributed the attendees to four quadrants focused on discussing:

Artificial Intelligence

Creativity

Connecting and Collaboration

How do we "fix" education

Small groups explored the topics, sheared wishes and explored possible solutions. Photo credit: Greg Barnette

To guide these conversations, we used the ‘Wish and Response’ method. For example, you write a sentence about how you wish people better understood where creativity comes from. 5 minutes later everyone rotates to the next quadrant, considers how to make that wish come true, and then writes down one possibility. Once every group had made a wish and made a wish come true at each station, we dug deep at our final station. How can we make sense of what we are seeing? Can we identify patterns? And can we name these patterns and hypothesize why they exist?

The idea was to find patterns and synergies. Photo credit: Verena Paepcke-Hjeltness
The idea was to find patterns and synergies. Photo credit: Verena Paepcke-Hjeltness
The idea was to find patterns and synergies. Photo credit: Greg Barnette
The idea was to find patterns and synergies. Photo credit: Greg Barnette

After this mentally engaging sprint, we changed gears with games including Kubb, Giant Jenga, Tee-KO, and Telestration. This got people up and moving, having fun, shifting mindsets and perspectives, and directly collaborating with each other before digging even deeper on topics brought up by the team. Topics discussed included:

  • The Potential formation of a US Design Council
  • Industrial Design Masters programmes: Who and what are they for
  • Dismantling the traditional Industrial Design curriculum
  • Recruitment and retention of students

For these discussions teams gathered around four separate white boards and unpacked everything they knew about the topic. Participants were free to jump from board to board or stay at one the entire time. Throughout, there was emphasis placed on capturing both compelling and contradictory ideas, making sure each conversation was clearly documented.

Ideas were mapped and prioritized. Photo credit: Verena Paepcke-Hjeltness

Wrapping Up

Many of us met the next morning to address the very thing that we never get to do at other conferences: to address the so what question. We have multiple unpacked topics and people who are passionate about creating change… so how do we make that happen?

A few boards and initiatives led to clear outcomes, like the recognition that some design educators are overloaded and would benefit from shared student resources, frameworks, and recruiting materials. Other topics will take longer to gain momentum, like creating a US Design Council. True to the SHiFT spirit, the biggest take-away from this event was the forging of community, built on shared understanding and bolstered by trust.

We created action items using the step-jump-leap framework so we can chart a path on how to move forward together. We separated that day, inspired and invigorated to collaborate again.