Design Next invites partners from commercial, public sector, community and not-for profit organisations to engage with us.
Design can create a lot of value in industry. It can make products or experiences safer as well as easier and cheaper to manufacture and implement. Design can also add value by making these products or experiences distinct and by helping companies manage their products and service portfolios better.
Consisting of four faculties – Art & Design, the Business School, Built Environment, and Engineering – Design Next is uniquely placed to reach more than 30,000 students, supported by expert staff and with access to world class facilities.
Design Next would like to work with industries to ensure every student leaves UNSW with a strong foundation and appreciation of design that uniquely couples multi-disciplinary knowledge, complex technical skills and other important skill-sets including communication, project management, and teamwork.
In 2020, Design Next is running DESN2000 (Engineering Design and Professional Practice), a core course for all year 2 Engineering students. Approximately 1,000 – 1,500 students will be enrolling in DESN2000 annually. The focus of DESN2000 is concept design. In 2021, we will introduce DESN3000 for third year students; and in 2022 DESN4000 as a capstone course for students. We will also be introducing design thinking courses in business and the design disciplines. We are currently looking for industrial partners for these courses. Click on the tiles below for more information on the many ways you can get involved. Click here to contact us.
We are also interested in other forms of partnerships, so we would love to hear from your organisation if you have any potential projects, proposals or case studies.
Design Next is currently looking for partnerships for DESN2000.
DESN2000 is our second-year core engineering course and will run two times this year: Term 2 (1 June - 10 August) and Term 3 (14 September - 23 October). As DESN2000 will be run in all Schools within the Faculty of Engineering, we are open to a wide range of Engineering problems - Chemical Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Minerals and Energy Resources Engineering, and Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering. Click here to find out more about the various disciplines.
Design Next is seeking in kind* support with commitments ranging from a 1-2 hour guest lecture to more involved contact (for example advising students working on an industry challenge/problem). Please continue reading for more information. We look forward to hearing from you.
1) Guest Lectures
Design Next welcomes you to give a lecture to our Engineering students on Design and Engineering. You could give a general lecture about design perspectives that would add value to engineers. For instance, would engineering solutions in your field benefit from a greater consideration to design? Or how about educating students about the importance of cultural considerations in their engineering solutions, or engineering for a special interest group such as people with disabilities or the older generation? You can also lecture about specific engineering design problems. You can lecture to the entire Faculty of Engineering year 2 student cohort, or you can lecture to a specific School within the Faculty of Engineering if that would be more relevant. Get in touch with us for further discussions.
2) Mentoring
If you are interested in shaping the engineers of the future, Design Next would appreciate your expertise and guidance. You can be a mentor to a DESN2000 project group and meet with these students regularly to provide feedback and advise from an industry perspective.
3) Industry challenges and problems
Many of today's challenges such as climate change, pollution, chronic diseases, bad traffic, inequality, overpopulation, ageing populations, etc., require cross-disciplinary solutions and collaborative problem solving. The University can be a powerful change agent. If your organisation is looking for solutions to any societal challenges, problems or case studies, Design Next would like to work with you! We are happy to work on challenges and problems that are foreseeable in the next 3-4 years which are industrially interesting, but not important enough for serious product development investments yet. You do not have to be an engineering industry to be involved. We just require a challenge that will benefit from an engineering solution.
In DESN2000, students will work in groups of up to 6 to research a problem, construct a possible solution, test the solution and report the outcome. Your organisation's involvement could be as minimal as providing a challenge/problem, to presenting the brief to students in a lecture, all the way to becoming a regular adviser to students as they work on their projects.
4) Judging
At the end of Term 2 (mid-August) and Term 3 (mid-November), the best DESN2000 project groups of the respective term will present their work at an expo-style event. This event will comprise both verbal and booth presentations. Design Next are looking for industry experts to judge these projects as we believe students will appreciate feedback from industry.
At the end of the year, Design Next will be organising a University-wide Design Day. The best DESN2000 projects in Term 2 and Term 3 will display their work at this Design Day. We are looking for Industry experts to judge these projects as well.
What about DESN3000 and DESN4000?
Design Next is currently working with all Schools within the Faculty of Engineering to introduce DESN3000 in 2021 and DESN4000 in 2022. DESN3000 will build on DESN2000, and aims to give students professional skills in systemic design within a commercial, social, public, environmental, and ethical context. DESN4000 will be a capstone course that uses disciplinary concepts and analytical techniques from DESN core courses to solve complex engineering problems.
If you have any engineering design challenges more suitable for year 3 and 4 undergraduate research, contact Design Next. We appreciate your feedback and perspective as we build these core courses with the eventual aim being to work with you in the above-mentioned capacities as well.
How about Art & Design, Business and the Built Environment?
While Design Next is focusing on DESN2000 at the moment, we also work across three other faculties - Art & Design, Built Environment and Business. Our emphasis is on cross-disciplinary design education to equip graduates with the capacity to solve the global problems facing us today. We are currently working with the Business School on Design Thinking education. If you are interested in engaging with us in any of the above capacities, please get in touch! As Design Next continues to grow and more and more courses are introduced, we would love to work with you.
*in kind support is a non-cash contribution that a party provides which can include but is not limited to (1) time, (2) expertise, (3) infrastructure e.g. models/prototypes for students to work with.
UNSW has a sophisticated support ecosystem for innovations. Design Next also participates in this infrastruture, which covers design thinking, hackathons, makerspaces, and also provides various small-scale instruments for funding and spaces.
- Click here for more information on the Michael Crouch Innovation Center MCIC and UNSW Founders Program
- Click here for more information on the Maker Games, a rapid prototyping competition
Contact us if you would like to get involved in or assistance running design workshops, competitions or events.
Design Next is looking for opportunities to build and be involved in social engagement programs. We would like to collaborate on programs that will provide students with the opportunities to work globally on the grandest challenges of the planet, including energy, inequality, aging, and environment. Our focus will be centered on Asia and Africa. Please contact us if you have suitable projects or would like to get involved.
Famous examples of design-driven companies
- Apple reinvented the PC industry in the nineties, and mobile phones ten years later. What distinguishes Apple is its relentless attention to user experience, which has a technological basis in both hardware and software.
- Crown Equipment, an American forklift manufacturer. Crown Equipment has improved its equipment for decades by investing in industrial designers.
- Metso is a Finnish paper machine manufacturer, which builds industrial production lines. Its former head of industrial design once estimated that about 20% of their customers buy their product because of its design. Less components due to smart design makes it easier to manufacture, easier to maintain, and less error prone.
- Alessi, an Italian kitchenware manufacturer, was known for very high-quality stainless steel pots and pans etc., but in the eighties and nineties started to hire "ludic" designers to create toy-like emotionally expressive goods that changed the kitchenware industry.
- IKEA and Zara are marvelously good examples of fast-moving low-tech consumer goods. Their design captures trends in a flash and rolls them out to the market. It may not be very innovative, but their business model would not work without designers.
- The Italian chemist Giulio Natta invented synthetic polymers, but his discovery first entered the home through furniture designed and manufactured by companies like Kartell, Driade and Magis.
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Contact us
For any enquiries, you can reach us at designnext@unsw.edu.au.