Perspectives from Innovative Learning Environments in Advanced Education for Design

This paper approaches new perspectives on possible ways to re-shape Ph.D. education in design that may consider complexity as a context for learning. To guide and develop this vision an approach is proposed focusing on the dynamics of learning occurring through the experience of design research and through the transformation of that experience and practice within the Ph.D. programme in Industrial design and Multimedia Communication at Politecnico di Milano. It will be assumed as well that, according to the above premises, industrial design may join those disciplines of change capable to get over the rigid disciplinary borders, outlining the profiles of Ph.D. learners and scholars open to react to the stimula of heterogeneous disciplinary fields, so to activate a transdisciplinary circulation of concepts. While trying a conceptual framework for this reflection, an experience is described as derived from a case-study of doctoral education and learning in multimedia design.