DESIGN STUDIO PRACTICE TO FOSTER CULTURAL AWARENESS: A TALE OF TWO COUNTRIES

Design studio practice is a pivotal element in design education, serving as a constructivist learning environment where students tackle complex, open-ended challenges through hands-on experience. This study focused on how the design studio, with its inherent structure and interactive framework, fostered multicultural awareness among students from two different countries and academic disciplines. Within the design studio model, three essential types of interaction drive learning: learner-teacher, learner-content, and learner-learner. These interactions enable a dynamic exchange of ideas, experimentation, and teamwork, allowing students to engage deeply with both content and their peers (Tucker, 2017). The importance of interaction in learning cannot be overstated, as Simpson and Galbo (1986) describe it as the reciprocal exchange of behaviors among individuals and groups. This process encompasses various forms of communication—verbal and nonverbal, conscious and subconscious—and is particularly effective in promoting interdisciplinary collaboration and intercultural understanding within the design studio. Cultural awareness is crucial within the design field, as professionals are often called to collaborate with individuals from diverse backgrounds. Culture, encompassing one’s beliefs, values, behaviors, and communication styles, shapes how individuals view and interact with the world (Awang-Shuib et al., 2017). To prepare students for this reality, the design studio environment encourages them to engage with peers from varied cultural backgrounds, fostering skills that are increasingly valued in forming effective, globally minded teams (Finley, 2021). This study carried out in two years, involved one hundred eleven (n = 111) undergraduate students from three design disciplines—Interior Design, Product Design, and Interactive Media Design—studying at two universities in Colombia and one in the United States. Together, these institutions implemented a virtual exchange (VE) project, which is in line with the Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) framework. This collaborative endeavor had students work together to share insights on their respective cultures, cities, and design fields. Acting both as designers and clients, students were tasked with creating a concept for an "experiential environment" that transcended physical boundaries, delivering a holistic dining experience. Each discipline contributed its specialized knowledge: interior designers focused on spatial arrangements, product designers on furniture and environmental elements, and interactive media designers on user experience and interfaces. To measure the project’s impact on cultural awareness, a validated survey, regularly used by one of the partner institutions for VE initiatives, was administered both before and after the project. This instrument, featuring 26 items rated on a 5-point Likert scale, assessed students’ attitudes toward multicultural engagement. Results showed a general increase in scores across most items, with a slight decline in “I prefer to socialize with people of my culture” and no change in “I like working in groups with students from other countries.” Ultimately, this project illustrates the power of design studio practice in cultivating cross-cultural competencies and preparing students for the global demands of the design field. It highlights how the interactive, interdisciplinary, and collaborative nature of the studio environment contributes to a holistic, real-world learning experience that aligns with the evolving needs of the design industry.