Abstract
The past two decades have witnessed design activities morphing from designing “posters and toasters”, towards strategic planning, system integration, innovation, and social transformation. Probably, no other discipline in the world has attracted as much attention as “design” to drive innovation, create value and transform society. This shifting of the design paradigm has necessitated design schools rethinking the appropriateness of their curricula for nurturing and educating a new breed of designers capable of taking on more responsible roles in the highly complex and competitive landscape expected of the creative industries. This paper asserts that design is the “third culture” in education and human development. It is argued that the design culture is different from the traditional “two cultures” - humanities and science - that are predicated in the production of rigour, truth and scholarship. Design is based on connoisseurship. While scholarship and connoisseurship are positioned at opposite poles of the logic-emotion continuum, the paper argues for their alliance, symbiosis and synergy as a potent strategy to drive innovation. A Master of Design Degree designed at AUT University is described to showcase our attempt to harmonise scholarship and connoisseurship. Keywords: Design Education, Scholarship, Connoisseurship, Symbiosis
