Talking furniture

Whilst we are talking furniture and fittings, since that is one of the things the d.school experiments with so well, think of this as the beginning of an occasional series on re-thinking the kit. I have written elsewhere about my problem with resorting to beanbags and primary colours to 'signal' that innovative learning is taking place - rather than really understanding what processes and practices underpin that learning (and designing for that).

So, what does it mean to relate to a computer, standing up? 

Doing the d.school

The d.school at Stanford University is rightly famous for providing cross-course supplementary education in design thinking to all students studying degrees there. As Scott Doorley - one of the directors of d.schools Environment Collaborative - says, the place has a "culture of prototyping; a bias towards action, doing rather than thinking, doing as a way to think, we need to have spaces which people can think together in, make it very easy to embody thought - anything that makes it easy to experiment and express an idea." The Make Space: how to set the stage for creative collaboration book records some fabulous examples of how they have generated cheap, prototypical elements to let them 'play' with learning.