Enabling Collaboration
Enabling Collaboration: Designing a New Collaborative Space for Design Management
Our project brief was to discover the requirements for effective collaboration within Design Management at SCAD and to design a space that reflected those insights. Currently, Design Management is housed within SCAD’s Gulfstream Center for Design. This is a shared building among several majors, of both graduate and undergraduate students. Some of the majors in Gulfstream include Industrial Design, Furniture Design, Service Design, and Sustainability Design. Gulfstream provides students with many valuable resources but with the growth of student population at SCAD, the building has become overcrowded. Furthermore, it is difficult to find space for effective collaboration at Gulfstream. While other groups of students have explored how to improve the current space at Gulfstream we were tasked with creating the ideal space for the unique needs of Design Management and similar majors, at a completely new location.
We ensured our team was aligned by creating a “How Might We” statement that clearly articulated our goals and main areas of focus for the project.
HOW MIGHT WE IMPROVE THE COLLABORATIVE EXPERIENCE OF THE DESIGN MANAGEMENT EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT?
Design Management - The DMGT program prepares students for professional success, enabling the conditions for design-driven innovation and value creation for people, markets and organizations.
Collaboration - The convergence of people with diverse disciplines and experiences for the purpose of working towards a shared vision or goal.
Environment - A space in the physical and/or digital world that enables an experience.
Primary Research
Synthesis and Opportunities
Affinitization
Our process of affinitization was extensive and highly analytical. Over the course of several sessions, we sorted through all of the data we had compiled thus far. This allowed us to recognize patterns and see how the data informed the bigger picture of designing a collaborative space for SCAD Design Management.
Opportunities
To create a space that reflects the growing collaborative nature and identity of DMGT.
To enable team-building for trust and respect to support effective collaboration.
To facilitate the interaction for at-a-distance collaboration.
To improve the availability and accessibility of tools.
To create a variety of personal and shared spaces for users to choose from.
To foster different levels of human interaction through the availability of space and resources.
To provide work environments and tools that promote equality within diversity.
To create an environment that promotes wellbeing.
Concepts and Prototyping
Concepting
User Journey
Final Solution
First Level Floor Plan
Second Level Floor Plan
