DN7027 - System and Institutional Design (2024/25)
Module specification | Module approved to run in 2024/25 | ||||||||||||
Module title | System and Institutional Design | ||||||||||||
Module level | Masters (07) | ||||||||||||
Credit rating for module | 20 | ||||||||||||
School | School of Art, Architecture and Design | ||||||||||||
Total study hours | 200 | ||||||||||||
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Assessment components |
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Running in 2024/25(Please note that module timeslots are subject to change) |
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Module summary
This module is primarily practice-based, however the curriculum has theoretical element intended to be applied to the practice of a real-work system. This module offers knowledge and experience of system and institutional design theories combined with creative practices in art and design. ‘New Commons’ principles and related theories will be used to integrate the learning with a contemporary network society. This interdisciplinary approach enables innovation and imagination with a wider understanding of the environment within which we produce work for a socially equitable environment. These may range from localized supply and demand chains of products to the design of localised informal and institutional infrastructures.
For the module’s system design skills, you will choose and map a system that affects your field, institutional context, site and practice. You will critically analyse the wider system that impacts your subject field of study to assess how it is aiding or hindering planetary or social justice or injustices. This module looks at broader national and global systems that impact specific problems. You will also learn about the human and non-human relationships that such systems create, produce and institutionalise as cultural norms. These systems may relate to cultural, economic, political, ecological and community issues and values, or power structures, access to housing markets, or other.
For the module’s institutional design skills, you will learn about the governance of the system. Topics covered by lectures will include inclusive institutional design, collaborative governance models and organisational aesthetics. You will be asked to analyse specific governance and institutional case studies to ascertain the inequalities to be designed out.
The module aims to provide you with the knowledge and skills to understand how to imagine new forms of infrastructure within which you can initiate your own projects and future practice. You will be exposed to policies related to equality, ethics and inclusivity and will learn the fund-raising skills necessary to pursue them.
Syllabus
Workshops, seminars and lectures will include:
System design thinking linked to discourse of the commons as localised system thinking (LO1-4);
Institutional design as a discourse which also includes relations of power and empowerment, individualism and collectivism, and forms of labour relations (LO3,4);
Organisational theories, experience and aesthetic and commons governance (LO2-4);
Peer-to-peer financial models including circular and inclusive economies (LO5).
Balance of independent study and scheduled teaching activity
All lecture material will be accessible online and lectures will be video recorded enabling remote learning.
You will be offered a combination of lectures, seminars and workshops where tutors will work directly with you on your chosen projects/case studies.
Independent learning includes:
Peer review and critiques
You will be asked to critique each other’s analytical work. There will be group activities in developing your analysis of institutional design or systems you chose as case study and you will be asked to present your analysis to relevant external bodies including your own place of work or others offered through the course;
Public Presentations
These enable you to have alternative and real-life input into your ongoing analysis work through which you will also learn the presentation skills appropriate to your unique project and character: the public nature of the presentations will provide platform for debate and engagement in the wider world;
Self-directed study
This is core to the module and used as the preparation for discussions, seminars and workshops, planning your studies and reviewing your personal development as an ongoing process.
Learning outcomes
On successful completion of the module, to the standard expected at Level 7, you will be able to:
Knowledge and Understanding
1. Understand and engage in complex system thinking;
Cognitive Intellectual Abilities
2. Analyse relationships produced by institutional and other forms of systems, for example labour relations, power relations, care relations;
Transferable Skills
3. Realise common good based economies;
Subject-Specific Practical Skills
4. Embed design in collaborative governance and institutional systems;
Professionalism and Values
5. Understand and apply the role of design and creativity in ethical forms of governance and system design.