Digital, Material, Engaged & Undisciplined: Introducing a Bachelor of Design at the Australian National University

Computers, software and the network are staples of our everyday lives, and with them come new challenges to design practice and education. Approaches geared to the production of stable physical artefacts must be adapted to a setting in which the product is not only virtual but always evolving and never complete. How do we prepare our design graduates for this challenging new context? While there is overwhelming consensus that digital literacy and expertise with code is vital (Maeda 2016), we argue that a deeper engagement with material production is equally as important. This paper uses the development of the ANUs new Bachelor of Design as a case-study to explore this proposition. It defines some of the most significant factors pressuring established design practice and details how our team at the ANU have attempted to adapt our curricula to meet those challenges. We detail the conceptual and theoretical foundations supporting our approach, and show how the digital and material are being brought together in novel ways to cultivate design graduates capable of contributing in a turbulent cultural and technical context.