The Design Program at the Universidad de los Andes offers a degree without specializations that trains holistic, open and attentive professionals to the social, cultural and technological dynamics of contemporary times. In this way, interdisciplinary communities and projects are activated through practice, where creativity is also the original formulation of problems and the creation of solutions that necessarily engage in dialogue with their environment, exercising new forms of citizenship. This vision is consolidated from the approach of post-specialty, trans-specialty design and the creation of new profiles that emanate from a model that connects the disciplinary with the professional and creates a framework for thinking about the future and diversity of the discipline.
Objectives
The Design Department defines as a basis for the training of its students a profile composed of seven competencies that are developed over eight semesters, taking into account academic and non-academic spaces as fundamental elements for the training of students. The seven competencies are:
- Study : build the design project as a creative space where the actors involved enable their potential to build the future, express culture and provoke change based on their values and objectives. In addition, lead this space to concrete, desirable, feasible and sustainable results.
- Office : generating a concrete expression of design ideas, in dialogue with the cultural landscape and accessible from human experience, capable of being produced and reproduced in a controlled manner.
- Literacy : being able to “read and write” codes in a variety of media in a practical way. That is, accessing the meaning of manifestations, content and tools created by others, and generating manifestations, content and tools whose meaning is accessible to others. Also, connecting, translating and complementing different literacies.
- Critical thinking : assuming knowledge of the discipline in a critical, reflective manner, sensitive to the context, the problem faced and other perspectives at stake. Likewise, qualifying the practice of the discipline, through the use and adaptation of concepts and reference frameworks, the reasonable discussion of processes and decisions, and the creative, prospective and ethical approach to professional development.
- Project management : discipline the non-linear processes of design and creation under a project logic that defines moments to formulate the problem, face uncertainty and generate the proposal. In addition, manage projects and facilitate their implementation by strengthening diverse actors and capacities in networks. Also, commit as a professional and citizen to the contribution and impact of the project.
- Communication : articulating a distinctive discourse of the discipline, arguing for one's own design actions and critically discussing those of others. In addition, making use of a language and medium relevant to the audience of the design project in a clear and effective manner, as well as fully documenting the project. Also establishing effective dialogue and interlocution with laymen and professionals, both to inform and enrich one's own practice, and to access other discursive and intellectual universes.
- Values / Integrity : Consolidate principles and values that support judgments, personal actions and professional practice. In addition, put these values at the service of healthy coexistence and well-being of the community, the care of the vital capacity of the planet and the strengthening of the profession. Also take responsibility for personal and professional actions before society and the profession.
Study Plan
The Program is structured as follows: Year 01: Training, Year 02: Understanding, Year 03: Exploration and Year 04: Integration.
YEAR 01: TRAINING
It welcomes the youngest students, provides skills that transcend the fields of design and offers young people who begin university life valid tools to inhabit education as a whole and not in watertight compartments. Here, it is about facilitating the student's exploration and helping him mature for his future decisions.
- Situated knowledge: appreciating culture as a sensory experience. Valuing the diversity of knowledge woven into human practices.
- Learning by doing: Thinking through doing and internalizing knowledge. Feeling the demands and rewards of acquiring skill.
- Problem Solving: Constructing contextualized, action-oriented knowledge. Thinking critically through experimental work.
YEAR 02: UNDERSTANDING
It marks the entry into design in a well-founded manner and seeks to provide the broadest possible path to the student entering the career, through 3 axes.
Integrated Development:
- Build solutions from existing capabilities.
- Integrate knowledge into concrete proposals.
- Devise tangible and intangible projects linked to complex systems.
Appreciation and Creation:
- Stimulate creation and critical reflection through cultural manifestations.
- Devise and embody design expressions that impact creative ecosystems.
- Questioning times and society.
Strategy and Management:
- Visualize and articulate innovation and sustainability.
- Lead and facilitate processes in competitive environments.
- Mapping human capabilities.
YEAR 03: EXPLORATION
It allows for disciplinary hybridization and facilitates the meeting between the student's interests and professional profiles. In this sense, they are spaces for dialogue with other disciplines that, at the same time, facilitate the construction of the student's individual portfolio. The emphases are:
Project :
- Strategically formulate and implement proposals.
- Working immersively with organizations and communities.
- Generate creative ventures.
Creation:
- Project portfolio and personal work.
- Structure an internalized knowledge of the media.
- Create pieces and content for the creative industries.
Investigation :
- Framing studies on the discipline (design studies).
- Articulate research on and from design.
- Open spaces for critical creation, social and cultural speculation.
- Conduct theoretical and applied research, curatorship.
YEAR 04: INTEGRATION
It is the last year of the undergraduate program and seeks to refine the graduate's professional projection and provide them with paths for lifelong learning. In addition, it establishes bridges with the Master's degree. It is made up of:
Advanced Projects :
- Concentration Project.
- Graduation project.
- Research + Creation: Clinic / Observatory / Factory.
- Research monitoring.
Self-managed Curriculum :
- Research and Creation.
- Teaching Assistance.
- Curriculum workshop.
Intergenerational courses:
- Master's Intensives.
- Master's Electives.
Areas of Research or Emphasis
The design program offers three emphases: project, creation and research.
The emphasis on projects arises from the intersection of the strategist and the developer. Here, different roles of design are present in industries and value-producing organizations, but also in the civil and government sectors that build infrastructure and public goods. The imperative to innovate demands professionals who are highly adept at agile (re)learning, interdisciplinary collaborative work, and the ability to crystallize diverse knowledge into design actions.
The emphasis on creation , for its part, arises from the intersection between the author and the developer. Here we find roles linked to creative and content industries, where meaning and communication are created and the cultural and plastic repertoire of society is enriched through use. It is the designer who makes pieces, the creator of content and icons, who tells stories and elaborates a discourse, but also provides it with a sensitive expression and an aesthetic experience. It is the area most rooted in tradition, and which keeps it alive.
The emphasis on research , finally, is born from the intersection between the strategist and the author. The roles of knowledge-based creative industries are present here: consultancy, curatorship and research support for innovation. These are designers capable of decoding the knowledge of the discipline into formalized intellectual products, and of judiciously navigating the sources and references that inform the design. It is also a space for reflection that lays the foundations for the exercise of criticism and a long-term academic career.
Program-Model
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Alumni Profile
The profile of the graduate of the Design Department of the Universidad de los Andes is cultivated in a space defined by three axes: strategist, developer and author. Each axis offers a powerful perspective for design creation, as well as its own methods and tools.
The strategist traces the landscape that surrounds him and demarcates fields of action where he reads dynamics of change. He understands the problems and potentials of a specific context, visualizes knowledge, resources and networks in an original way, to inspire and create sustainable projects that activate communities and actors. Typically, the strategist designer is linked to a social or productive organization, where he contributes to forging a shared vision. In practice, he moves throughout the organization and its environment facilitating synergy, through projects where he translates the vision into concrete actions and results.
The developer seizes an idea or a project in the making, captures its potential and, challenging technological, economic or institutional limitations, guides and corrects its different project phases. Grounded in the mastery of the craft, the developer investigates, learns and builds through doing. He is a problem solver, capable of specifying his answers at a detailed level and converting them into knowledge that can be disseminated and appropriated in value networks.
The author participates in the creation of new cultural manifestations, displacing creative boundaries – from the design project – with a critical and reflective stance towards the times, society and the discipline. The designer-author assumes an active voice, questions, proposes: he enriches the cultural heritage, enlivens public debate, makes visible scenarios and possibilities that facilitate dialogue and the participation of his fellow citizens.
The greatest potential of these axes lies in the various balances and intersections that arise from their combinations, in the manner of a Cartesian space. Each combination offers powerful challenges to the evolution of the discipline, to the roles of job performance, and to the long-term vocational expectations of our professional community.
Contact Information
Undergraduate Coordination
Email: disepregrado@uniandes.edu.co
Phones and extensions: (+57)(601) 3394949/99 Ext.: 2489 - 4877 - 3835
Website: https://arqdis.uniandes.edu.co/pregrado/dis/
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