Recently, Prof. Clive Van Heerden, the founder and director of VHM Design Futures and the supervisor of the master's degree program in Design Future at the Royal College of Art, set up the Reverse the Future Master Workshop in JAI, including a teacher's workshop on “Critical Deconstruction of Design”, a student workshop on “Design Strategies for the Future” and a lecture themed on “Critical Thinking and Design for th Future”. Reverse the Future Master Workshop is an important part of the “Design Master Workshop” brand activities of the School of Design of JAI, which lasts for 8 days, aiming at discussing the future development trend of the design field around different themes, highlighting the reverse and anti-conventional elements in design thinking, exploring the necessity of innovation, and providing teachers and students with valuable learning and communication opportunities.
Based on his rich academic background and practical experience, Prof. Clive has developed a unique set of non-linear future prediction theory to study the development prospect of the next 10 years.
Workshop Group Photo
Twenty-six young teachers from the School of Design participated in the teacher workshop. Prof. Clive guided the teachers to explore the development of new products and services from the perspective of ecosystems, and explained how to explore the consequences of an event with the brainstorming tool “Future Wheel”. Teachers worked in small groups to complete critical thinking exercises under the guidance of Prof. Clive. Clive emphasized that design should not be limited to the surface of a product, but should be an important way of thinking about strategic decisions. By analyzing traditional processes through critical thinking, the differences between multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches can be examined, on the basis of which teachers can better respond to the challenges posed by consumer culture, environmental impacts, and so on.
Presentation of some of the results of Master Workshop
In the student workshop, Prof. Clive guided the students to map trends, using weak signal tools to develop future scenarios and narratives. He discussed with the students the differences between the Linear and Adaptive Future Prospecting Approaches, and instructed them on how to adopt a “disclaimer” approach to future strategy development. They were also instructed on how to use the “abandonment speculation” approach to develop future strategies. This session not only enabled the students to master the core skills of future design, but also stimulated their passion and pursuit of innovative design.
Prof. Clive’s lecture
In the lecture, Prof. Clive said that in the era of high informationization and rapid technological development, design is not only an art of creating beauty, but also an important force for social progress, and the significance of design should be analyzed from multiple dimensions, and how to foresee and shape the future through design should be explored. Through the lecture, students and faculty further understood how design thinking influences innovation strategies and how designers can redefine their roles in the context of globalization, contributing to the creation of a more inclusive and sustainable future. Prof. Clive suggested that in today's fast-changing society, critical thinking is not only an academic ability, but also a necessary survival skill. It can develop students' independent thinking, innovation and problem solving skills, and lay a solid foundation for their future development.
Prof. Clive Van Heerden's Reverse the Future Master Workshop series not only brought our teachers and students an academic feast in the field of design, but also strengthened the school's design professional education heritage. In the future, JAI will continue to invite more famous experts and scholars from home and abroad to carry out lectures and exchange activities to promote the continuous improvement of the school's design education level.
