Global Studio brings international flavour for Northumbria design students

June 10, 2011 in Features

global_studio_logo An understanding of different cultures is a key skill for designers in an increasingly global market place.

That is why Dr Erik Bohemia at Northumbria University set up The Global Studio – changing the way design is taught in the North East.

The Global Studio is based on the philosophy that design should be seen within its social and cultural contexts.

The main aim is to equip the young designers with the abilities to work in cross-cultural collaboration projects. It’s an outlook becoming more and more relevant as the world becomes a smaller place.

Go abroad – virtually

The Global Studio projects involve partners from across the globe – universities as well as commercial partners such as Motorola and Intel.

Part of the idea is to give students a virtual alternative to a physical exchange year abroad.

According to Erik, spending time in other countries is often hugely beneficial for designers.

“During their stay they can absorb the cultural nuances and can actually start understanding also the ‘nitty gritty’ bits about the place”, he said.

The Global Studio aims to give the same understanding but it does so through virtual means – and to a wider group of students.

“We want the students to start understanding that even though there are a lot of similarities because of the globalisation culture, there are also lots of differences between cultures and celebrating those differences is quite important.”

Dr. Erik Bohemia is interested in exploring the impact globalisation has on design.

Cultural translators

Erik also emphasised the important role the designers have in shaping different cultures.

“If the designers are understood as cultural translators and they’re contributing to the culture, they should start understanding the impact they might have on culture”, he said.

“And how they should take into consideration the cultural aspect when they’re developing the product”, he continued.

Fighting for web 2.0 tools

The Global Studio was established quickly after Erik joined Northumbria.

Having previously worked at the University of Western Sydney in Australia and undertook a Research Fellowship at Delft University of Technology in Holland, his international background meant he wasn’t settling for a traditional way of teaching design.

During the five years of The Global Studio, Erik has had to overcome a few institutional barriers to get all the required technical bits in place.

The communication within The Global Studio projects happens via various web 2.0 tools, which haven’t traditionally been the favourite choices of the IT departments of academic institutions.

But Erik’s passion meant that he was able to convince the key people to take on an experimentative project leading to an institution-wide roll-out of open source software.

“Now that we have all the IT side of things in place we can start focusing fully on exploring virtual learning issues and understanding different cultures the way design both comes out of and contributes to culture”, Erik said.