While we’re on the subject of education ill share this piece of relatively old news by online standards:-)
“Hasso Plattner, co-founder of the business-process software giant SAP (SAP), is donating $35 million to fund a new design school at Stanford University. It will be housed in the Stanford School of Engineering and be called the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design.
This donation will further the evolution of design from an emphasis on form and style toward more sophisticated design thinking and strategy. The new design school will teach innovation by bringing together students from business, engineering, medicine, psychology, anthropology, and design to form collaborative teams that solve problems.” from BusinessWeek
Students who will enter this program will come out with a certificate in Design Thinking which sounds promising but how do you do that? As the school doesnt seem to be opened yet, i will refrain judgement but i will be watching closely…
For those of you who paid attention to the beginning of this adventure at the start of this year when I first heard about d.school, i couldnt help but smile at the structure that was presented and who set it up (practically the same bunch who set up my school 5 years ago). As a seemingly-functional model, I know from my experience at Interaction Design Ivrea that this creative collaborative work does not come easily.
What makes it work depends on the level of involvment with others and how close you are to each other not in terms of experience but in terms of working conditions. Here in Italy, they had to set the school up in the middle of nowhere, in a country that was foreign to most of us, to force us into a work and synergy that i am sure will never be replicated anywhere else but that makes us able to face any type of teamwork situation in the future.
Extreme conditions dont only work for mountain climbers 
Any other examples of extreme teamwork/creative conditions in or out of education?
3 comments so far
ok - got my name right 
Alexandra, out here in Australia I am not up to speed on the topics you are talking about in this post. The conditions here are not extreme, that is unless you consider extreme conservatism relevant…Some of my teaching experiences in China certainly were extreme [but that’s another story].
My real objective in this comment is to encourage you to become involved in the runway on design education. We value your perspective on this important area…Collaboration is particulalry relevant to the discussion over there - love to hear more from you.
hi there Ian,
I would love to hear about your experience in China… im sorry if this is a little obscure for you, didnt intend for it to be… i guess im trying to avoid writing huge posts about the teaching environment at Ivrea. The political landscape can surely influence academics and the existence of schools such as mine, but i would be glad to continue this and contribute to the design education runaway… just hadnt picked up on it, the mass of posts on the site in the past months is frightening in a great way! …
Alexandra,
I think that we would very much welcome your huge posts on the teaching at Ivrea to get a european perspective in the runway on global design education.
What do you think, Hans?
niti