Methodology Lab

The first edition of Methodology Lab took place in January 2021 at Willem de Kooning Academy in the form of a Station Skill workshop. Throughout four sessions, we—a group of seven students guided by me—immersed ourselves into a selection of socially engaged design practices. Through analysing and interpreting how existing practices work and reflecting on their modus operandi, we gathered insights and inspiration, and identified some of the common pitfalls that many socially engaged designers seem to run into. After doing so, we constructed our own, hybrid practice based on our own interests and the gathered insights and reflections. 

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For each exercise, I created a worksheet that could be filled out digitally. Students could download the worksheets, fill them out, and then share their ideas with the group. For the latter, I developed an online environment using Miro.

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The illustrations on the right demonstrate the different steps of the ‘online workflow’ I developed:

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1. Open the session’s dedicated Miro board.
2. Download the worksheet
3. Open the worksheet in Adobe Acrobat
4. Fill out the worksheet
5. Hit the save button
6. Drop your filled out worksheet on the Miro board
7. Exchange ideas and reflections with your peers

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Another benefit of this online workflow, is that I could easily collect the material created throughout the workshop. This enabled me to compose a ‘Methodology Lab Reader’ that collects all of the created ideas and reflections. The reader is available on request.