Collaboration between Teacher and Student: WKU’s Design Prowess Showcase in Shanghai

On November 18, 2023, the Art and Design Education: FutureLab Expo was inaugurated at the West Bund Art Center in Shanghai. The Michael Graves College of Architecture and Design at Wenzhou-Kean University presented an exhibition titled ‘BOTH/AND’, showcasing the creative and research achievements of WKU’s faculty and students, which aims to demonstrate the pedagogy of WKU that emphasizes the integration and coexistence of Chinese and Western cultures. This marks WKU’s second appearance at the education expo.

FutureLab is an international exhibition and exchange platform for teachers, students, scholars, and institutions in the field of art and design. This year, the focus is on innovative practices and the latest challenges in today’s design education. The schools selected for participation this year include NYU Shanghai, China Academy of Art, Basel School of Design (Switzerland), School of Design of East China Normal University, Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts, and Design School of Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. Together, they engaged in the exchange of innovative ideas in the field of art and design education.

BOTH/AND, Sino-Foreign Coexistence

WKU’s exhibition, titled ‘BOTH/AND’, was curated and designed by the Wenzhou-Kean Design Lab (WKDL).

What is ‘BOTH/AND’? According to Prof. David Vardy, the exhibition curator and director of WKDL, ‘BOTH/AND’ explores the incubation of design-education culture that consists of border-crossing hybridity, east-west coexistence, and multi-disciplinary heterogeneity in the context of Sino-foreign cooperative universities.

Michael Graves College of Wenzhou-Kean University is comprised of two schools, the School of Design and the School of Public Architecture, offering Graphic Design, Industrial Design, Interior Design, and Architecture programs. This division is reflected in the spatial planning of the exhibition: Room One shows the work of BOTH students of Graphic Design and Industrial Design from the School of Design (SoD), while Room Two displays the collaborative design AND research achievements of faculty and students from the School of Public Architecture (SoPA).

In the eyes of Prof. Vardy, the concept of ‘BOTH/AND’ is a projection of Michael Graves College. It is at the intersection of ‘BOTH’ Chinese and American culture ‘AND’ Chinese-American education, symbolizing cultural exchange and the creation of a new culture. The innovation at Wenzhou-Kean University lies in pioneering a transcultural pedagogy that goes beyond boundaries.

“Essentially, schools of design and architecture produce and co-produce work and graduates that are ‘BOTH/AND’”, said Prof. Vardy.

Students AND Faculty, Design AND Research

Every detail seems to highlight the pedagogy of “student-teacher collaboration” in the exhibition space of Wenzhou-Kean University.

The architectural works of Room Two offered examples that are outside-of-class, faculty-led collaboration between professor AND student. These projects include ‘Travellers amid Streams and Mountains’, the main gate AND symbol of the Wenzhou-Kean University campus; ‘Covered Bridge’, a new campus bridge AND social space inspired by the covered bridges of Taishun County and the result of an internal student design competition; and ‘Bifurcation: Landscape Interventions in Bordering Settlements’, a research AND exhibition piece resulting from professor AND student collaboration, recently exhibited at the 2023 Venice Biennale.

Among the exhibited design works of Room One is the furniture design piece ‘PRE’ by Zhu Yizheng, a graduate of the class of 2023. This work combines a furniture collection with a magic puzzle, requiring interaction to open and operate the furniture. Recently, the work was listed in the Fundamental Research Category of the Graduate360° Annual Graduation Design Award.

A small camping area was set up on-site, showcasing the design work ‘Rural Ones.’ This series connects with the past culture of camp-building, and is the design of a modular camping cooking system, offering a materially and spatially economical camping solution. In addition, there is the work ‘SO DOPE,’ a typographic installation that blends the design and interaction between humans and computers, as well as the modality of light and dark.

In addition to the exhibited works, the exhibition also displays reflections from young designers at WKU on “learning beyond the curriculum.” Xu Jiayi, a graduate from the class of 2021, currently serves as a research assistant at WKDL. Under the guidance of professors, she participated in the design of the university gate, a work presented at the event. She said that working in the design lab is an opportunity to learn from challenges in the design industry that transcend the architecture discipline itself and to contemplate the connections between architecture, landscape, and sustainable development of the art.

The design of the exhibition wall for this showcase was undertaken by Wang Yihan, a graduate of the Graphic Design Department. In her perspective, studying at WKU is more akin to collaborative work with teachers rather than the traditional professor-student model of design guidance.

Prof. Vincent Peu Duvallon, the Executive Director of the School of Public Architecture, expressed that at WKU, students not only gain academic knowledge within the classrooms but also engage in research practices outside the classroom in collaboration with teachers. Through this exhibition, he hopes to showcase the research achievements of both students and teachers inside and outside the classroom at WKU, emphasizing the collaborative nature of their academic endeavors.

The exhibition is scheduled to run until November 26. Individuals from various sectors of society are welcome to attend and explore the educational and developmental achievements of Wenzhou-Kean University.

Writer: Wenwei XIANG, Yifei DING

Proofreader: David Vardy, Shu WANG