Orientation

• GSMD 500 Design Studio I (6 credits, letter grade): This studio focuses on the tangible processes necessary to discuss, explore and synthesize design. Readings and content from complementary classes will be brought into the studio, diagrammed, illuminated and analyzed through intensive sketching and visualization activities. Students will explore metaphoric and narrative methods such as video prototyping, scenarios and storyboarding, to investigate events and ideas. Critiques will focus on the student’s effectiveness in visualizing or embodying insights developed out of their research as well as on their effectiveness in communicating to diverse audiences via the tools, methods and mediums of their investigation.
• GSMD 501 Design Research Methods I (3 credits, letter grade): This course introduces graduate level design methodologies. Students are expected to develop research as it pertains to their individual projects and to expand their understanding of a broad range of design practices. The student will demonstrate graduate level capabilities in reading and writing in this course through the execution of bibliographic, methodological and theoretical projects. In particular, the student will demonstrate capacity to discriminate and navigate through the methods, tools and procedures of use to advanced designing as it engages with human behaviour, the techno-sciences, social constructs and environmental imperatives. The student will generate familiarity with the literature, traditions, and trends in design methods and such range of approaches (methodology) to permit the student to develop the particular framework, tools and procedures for their work plan. The development and capacity to communicate these means will flow directly into the deliverables that will constitute the student’s program, in particular the thesis project and its exposition.
• GSMD 502 Contemporary Dialogues I (3 credits, letter grade): This seminar exposes students to critical and theoretical contexts within which their understanding of contemporary design can be provoked. As the traditional discipline expands to include hybrid practices that reform the meanings of culture and society, students are to examine multiple trajectories through which designing can intervene. Through a review of media phenomena, literature and case studies, students will engage critical debates challenging the world as they know it. In addition to required readings, presentations, writing assignments and discussions, each student is expected to demonstrate leadership in debates of choice. Such debates will be shaped around critical engagement with the pivotal case studies that make up the thrust of the course content. Such cases will be chosen for the depth of their examination of social, economic, technical, environmental and aesthetic issues affecting practice into the future. These case debates will enable students to consolidate and extend their knowledge and understanding of design practice as part of a complex and shifting web of cultural, political, rhetorical and technological dynamics.

• GSMD 510 Design Studio II (6 credits, letter grade): This intensive studio brings together research and theory with a rigorous studio practice. The objective of the course is to focus a thesis direction through exploration, ideation, and experimentation within a subject area. This includes serial imaging, reinterpretation of assumptions, and regular in-class critiques of the tangible outcomes of design. In conjunction with Design Methods II, students will articulate a clear proposal for a thesis project. This proposal will be reviewed by their supervisor and with approval, will form the basis for their Research Ethics application. It will include a formal research plan to be instituted over the summer, and a clear direction for design and implementation in the fall semester.

• GSMD 511 Design Research Methods II (3 credits, letter grade): The discourse within and about methods in design has become a highly active and fertile field. Students will enter into the discourse about practice through exposure to the theoretical literature, as well as through the research about designing. The objective will be to develop a personal capacity to use design methods systematically to generate superior insight and understanding of problem spaces and solution potentials from both the need side and the affordance side. The student will learn to merge design methods within their thesis project work plan. Familiarity with the range of approaches (methodology) will permit the student to develop the particular framework, tools and procedures (methods) that can realize the type of knowledge he or she is pursuing. The development of these means will flow directly into the end deliverables that constitute the student’s program, in particular the thesis project and its exposition. The design methods developed in this course describe the path that the student is taking in the thesis project. The writing and diagramming of that path will be a major part of the written exposition that complements studio production in the mediums of choice.

• GSMD 550 Directed Studies I (3 credits P/F grade): This directed studies topics module/studio is intended to support first year Master of Design students working on self-directed projects and contribute to early stage development of their graduate studies thesis prior to Advancement Review. The course will support students designing for research or professional leadership contexts. Within the course, students may work on interdisciplinary industry and research-sponsored projects, or personal projects that consider how design can explore and address social based concerns, and take on innovative material practice challenges. A focus will be placed on developing: skills, design research methodologies, salient community engagement. The course will provide a forum for critical design-focused conversations, guest critiques, and collaboration amongst interdisciplinary students working on related projects. Students in this course will be expected to be self-directed and will begin by establishing their own project and specific learning objectives within the course.

• GSMD 515 Design Studio Primary Research (3 credits, P/F grade): In this course, students will follow through on the plan developed in GSMD 511 Design Research Methods II and conduct the primary research phase of their thesis work. This research will be documented, synthesized and presented through visual means such as charts, graphics, and other easily understood forms. Analysis of the research findings will be presented in a public presentation in September.
• GSMD 520 Independent Project (6 credits, P/F grade): Students will conduct independent design exploration of their thesis project in preparation for a public presentation in September.
• GSMD 602 Thesis Project Seminar I (3 credits, letter grade): This graduate level course guides students through developing the grounding theory supporting their thesis. Working in conjunction with independent summer research practice and thesis inquiry that is guided by student’s supervisors, this course will serve as a site for further exploration. Imagined as an exquisite corpse reading collective, students will work in affinity groups to collaboratively seek out resources that can strengthen the theoretical foundations of their work. Through innovative conversational formats, students will engage with written content, forming questions, unpacking assumptions considering research trajectories and identifying relevance through sites of knowledge and knowing. Ideas will be advanced by group discussions, thinking through readings, critiques, and critical writing, ultimately developing complex understandings and connections with theory and practice.

– Summer in Review –

• GSMD 600 Design Studio III (6 credits, letter grade): Students will focus on their independent thesis project as the primary focus of the semester. Applying primary research conducted over the summer, students will develop their design, realized as some form of prototype/model for user testing. Outcomes include a public presentation of the thesis project early in the semester, and a substantially completed project by the end of the semester. Thesis projects may be experimental, research-oriented, educational or pragmatic, but remain directly relevant to the discipline of a design practice. The thesis project is an opportunity to demonstrate at an advanced level the integration of knowledge represented by the discipline of designing. The thesis project may exist as a designed artifact, service or system, environmental intervention, meaningful communication, media presentation, or any interactive adaption of the above. The thesis project is comprised of a production in some medium as well as a written component that progressively situates the production in and reflects on context. These two components – an innovation through media and the written contextualization of such a process, comprise the thesis project.
• GSMD 612 Thesis Project Seminar II (3 credits, letter grade): This course will support students’ work towards the formation of their design thesis document. Development and linkage of research questions, research strategies, theories, methods, approaches and practice will be addressed. Workshop exercises, class lectures and discussion will cover key elements including means of framing and considering research through literature review, case studies and reflective writing practices. Students will practice these techniques and use their own research to inform a coherent, well documented and persuasive argument in support of their research project. As the seminar progresses the identification and selection of style and language appropriate to individual projects will be addressed.
• GSMD 650 Directed Studies II (3 credits, P/F grade): This directed studies topics module/studio is intended to support Master of Design students working on self-directed projects and contribute to thesis refinement and direction prior to Candidacy Review. The course will support students designing for research or professional leadership contexts. Within the course, students may work on interdisciplinary industry and research-sponsored projects, or personal projects that consider how design can explore and address social based concerns, and take on innovative material practice challenges. A focus will be placed on developing: skills, design research methodologies, salient community engagement. The course will provide a forum for critical design-focused conversations, guest critiques, and collaboration amongst interdisciplinary students working on related projects. Students in this course will be expected to be self-directed and will begin by establishing their own project and specific learning objectives within the course.

– Performance + Progress Review –

GSMD 610 Design Studio IV(3 credits, P/F grade): This course supports a period of independent work to support the advanced progress of the students’ thesis project with the support of the supervisor. Students are expected to establish milestones to work through final stages of project development which will differ according to each student’s project. Expectations will have been established in prior studios and through continued work with
faculty and supervisor. Steps to test or otherwise assess the validity of the final project outcome may be undertaken in this course, if applicable. The final aim of the course will be to finalize the thesis project and develop methods of communicating the work through several channels, including oral and visual/written presentation and critique.

GSMD 620 Design Studio V (6 credits, P/F grade): This course is an independent studio intended to provide an environment to support the advanced progress of the students’ thesis project. Students are expected to establish milestones to work through final stages of project development which will differ according to each students’ project. Expectations will have been established in prior studios and through continued work with their supervisor. Steps to test or otherwise assess the validity of the final project outcome may be undertaken in this term, if applicable. The final aim of the course will be to work to finalize the thesis project and home methods of communicating the work through various channels.

GSMD 622 Thesis Project Seminar III (3 credits, P/F grade): This course will guide students through elements and considerations that are key to the successful presentation and support of their research project both orally and through exhibition. Students will be introduced to tools and tactics that are used for reporting and presenting design and research projects in the academic peer review context – that help convey their thesis content in an honest, accountable, compelling and persuasive manner.

– Thesis Symposia –