Whyte studied urban environments using movie cameras, recorded observations, and interviews in an attempt to understand how people actually use outdoor spaces such as plazas, sidewalks, and street corners. Whyte's earnest and often humorous narration make the film entertaining, but more than this, the material itself --the people watching-- is fascinating. Moreover, many of Whyte's findings challenge commonly held assumptions about urban design.

Watching this film was one of the most entertaining and educational hours I ever spent in graduate school. There are lessons here that any designer can learn.

Unfortunately, the video is out of print, but you can still pick up a copy of the book which covers the same material.

BlogLESS: Talk to me about why the program was founded?
ZD: The reason for founding the MFA in Collaborative Design is summed up nicely by Peter Schoonmaker of Illahee, one of the mentors in the program. His Twitter bio says "Seeking non-trivial solutions to wicked problems." I think there is a pretty clear recognition in the world of design that the wicked problems facing the planet require an approach that works between and even transcends disciplines and takes into account the needs and desires of many more human and non-human actors than are currently consulted by designers.

These ideas and the need for this program have been percolating over the last five years at PNCA, and finally became a reality this year. I am very excited to be part of a program that allows students create work with native wetland species as their primary clients! What do the wetland plants want, and how do we make these designs viable and integrated? What other stakeholders need to be taken into account?

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My friend Zack is helping to launch a new graduate program at PNCA in Oregon this fall. The program is focused on a number of things that we here at BlogLESS love - collaborative research across disciplines, design that addresses new challenges, systems thinking, and plain old good design. If I were in the market for an MFA program, I'd be very much into this one. From the program's site:

Participants will encounter and co-create a series of expanded design practices and will develop skills to meaningfully address the emerging challenges of the 21st century. Working in transdisciplinary studio teams, students will respond to design briefs containing challenges such as resource depletion, emerging technologies, urban demographic change, and global climatic shifts. These environmental, social and technological challenges demand design practices that assemble and maintain networks of people, places and artifacts in order to develop non-trivial solutions. Students will graduate with a portfolio of projects that feature design as a process for considering and acting in a complex and highly interconnected world.

They have a ton more information on their site, as well as a tumblr which showcases work & inspiration. Applications are due at the beginning of April.

Imagine a circle that contains all of human knowledge...Reading research papers takes you to the edge of human knowledge...Once you're at the boundary, you focus.

And, that dent you've made is called a Ph.D.