Notebooks as didactic tool in design education

Abstract

Notebooks are an important didactic tool both for students and teaching staff. The idea of notebooks is that the daily work and thinking is reflected in notes, drawings, sketches, diagrams. Keeping track of the content of daily work can give an idea of the evolution and development of ideas. Especially this last aspect is important; to have a specific place where you can play with ideas and where the experimental and explorative work can be done. Moreover the evolution of thinking on a longer time scale can also be overseen. Notebooks are not only used among designers, engineers but also by scientists; they call them mostly 'lab journals'. The goals are the same, only the content is different. The central question in this paper how notebooks can be integrated in the curriculum in such a way that there is a more than personal advantage for the student in question. The paper is organised in three parts. First an overview of goals, content and some examples of notebooks, both from literature and our own experience in teaching visualisation in a faculty of architecture. In the second part we will pay attention to the development of content and techniques to improve the quality of notebooks as teaching aid. These principles form also the basis for the criteria for assessment and marking of notebooks. In the last part we will conclude how notebooks can be integrated in today's curricula for design schools. One of the conclusions is that notebooks combine the personal development of a student with the generic requirements that are part of every curriculum. The role of the teacher is crucial; only if the teaching staff as a whole fully supports and contributes to the idea, it can be successful. The result to strive for, is students that discover themselves the notebook as their personal idea generator and research tool.