HETEROGENEOUS TEAMS IN DESIGN EDUCATION: ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF DIVERSITY ON TEAMWORK THROUGH A CASE STUDY

Both design education and design profession are recently witnessing to a shift in the way teamwork is organised. Collaborations are increasingly characterised by a multifaceted diversity (cross-cultural and interdisciplinary) among team members determining a deep change in their inner dynamics. Since this shift is taking place in many fields, it is now fundamental to assess the impact of diversity on teamwork. The paper proposes a first assessment of the diversity effects on teamwork dynamics in the design education by presenting the case study of an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural master course. The course curricula are indeed designed to prepare the students to work in the field of architecture by integrating product design competences and vice versa, training them to the interdisciplinary design approach, which is an unavoidable condition in these work fields. Therefore, within the course, architects, industrial designers and engineers from different geographical areas are continuously involved in heterogeneous teamwork.