The young people coming to this first, prototypal school would come freely from all parts of the world. They would stay for a year or longer
and participate in the simultaneous learning and practising of integrated design. These young men and women would be of varied
backgrounds, differing age groups, with study and work experiences in many different fields. At all times they would operate as a multidisciplinary
design team. Their work would be socially relevant and always 'real'. By this I mean that, rather than setting to work on
theoretical problems chosen only for their similarities to problems dealt with in professional design offices (as is done in all schools),
members of the team would direct their attention to the actual needs of society. In other words, all the work carried on in this milieu would be
anticipatory.
Such an environment would satisfy a major social need not filled today: the creation of a body of designers trained in the skills that the future
will demand of them. Just as astronauts and cosmonauts are taught skills that may be demanded of them months or years hence on the moon
or Mars, the design team too will have to prepare itself for the social challenges of integrated comprehensive design that the future will bring.
The solutions of design problems will be turned over to concerned individuals, social groups, governments, or trans-national organisations.
As this entire concept of an experimental design environment is thought of as non-profit-earning, any money 'earned' through solving these
real problems would be directly returned to the work group as tools, machinery, devices, structures, and land. We only have to examine
learning situations which people find rewarding, 'fun', and in which they learn optimally, to see why the small size of this group is important.
Earlier in this book I discussed learning to drive a car. This skill is taught on a one-to-one, teacher-student ratio. It is further reinforced by the
equipment used (the car) and the environment. Other, similar, valuable learning situations are ski-schools and swimming schools. Here again
the emphasis is on a small teacher- student ratio, a mutually interactive and mutually reinforcing group, and the action of this group within the
environment. Most importantly, perhaps, the 'teacher' possesses and practises the identical skills which the 'students' are learning. He is never
a remote professor, tied up within the ivory tower of his own re- search (as is the case in the universities). Nor is he a 'teaching assistant' or
graduate student so busy with his own studies that he can give only scant attention to his students.
There is no question that teachers (especially in design) must be constantly involved in its practice. But only a system such as the one
proposed here will eliminate the false divorce between practice and teaching.
All members of this team would live and work communally. Their existence would be eased through the whole concept of 'communal
sharing': that is, consuming more, but owning less. A representative group of thirty present-day university students will serve as one small
example: they own, on the average, twenty six automobiles, thirty-one radios, and fifteen high-fidelity systems. Without belabouring the
obvious, such a capital investment in transient consumer goods would eliminate itself. While expediency would demand the starting of such a
'school' in a series of old buildings, a farm, or the like; the eventual buildings would be the responsibility of the team. Temporary domes,
information-input cubes (a la Ken Isaacs), and the constructing of more permanent working rooms, sleeping spaces, and social spaces would
provide team members with valuable experiences in a living-working environment - one that is constantly changing, constantly being
questioned and experimentally restructured through their own thinking and their own labour.