RMIT University’s newest postgraduate program focuses on the integration of digital technologies with design practice.
Taught within RMIT’s renowned Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory (SIAL) led by Associate Professor Jane Burry, the new Master of Design Innovation and Technology speculates on the future of design practice to advance the next digital revolution.
The coursework program aims to prepare design leaders for a rapidly changing environment.
Associate Professor Burry said the program’s multi-disciplinary approach would appeal to students from a wide variety of disciplines and professions including architecture, industrial and sound design, computer science, engineering and media.
“Advances in the digital age have already transformed design practice but we are only at the cusp of a greater revolution,” said Professor Burry.
“The integrated application of technology and prototyping from design through to construction is now becoming a reality,” she said.
“The new Master of Design Innovation and Technology offers students a unique opportunity to learn from and work alongside SIAL researchers who are at the forefront of digital design practice.”
SIAL researchers are engaged in a wide variety of projects that collaboratively break down artificial distinctions between the physical and virtual, digital and analogue, scientific and artistic, instrumental and philosophical.
This interdisciplinary research has ranged from highly speculative exploration of high end computing, to a continued role in the design and realisation of Antoni Gaudí’s Sagrada Família in Barcelona.
A recent project of the lab was FabPod, a full-scale prototype that addressed the challenge of designing and prototyping a meeting room enclosure for open-plan work environments. FabPod was a finalist in the 2013 Premier’s Design Awards.
Design studios in the Master of Design Innovation and Technology are based around the themes of Designing Information Environments, Designing Responsive and Adaptive Environments, Spatial Sound Design and Urban Soundscape and Digital Fabrication Construction and Advanced Manufacturing.
