Studio costs; it just does.

Traditional studio spaces (sometimes dedicated 24/7 to individual students or classes), tutors who engage intensively with low numbers of students, studio hours which gobble up chunks of the curriculum, as well as multiple types of technology and tech support – all of these impact higher education budgets without doubt.

At a time when those budgets are stressed and under scrutiny organizational conversations around managing the cost of studio veer from the “suck it up and rotate (ever larger) classes through the studio space” variety to the “it’s a miracle – student-owned laptops and AI tutors will eliminate equipment and personnel costs” variety. Either of these tends to result in cost cutting measures which, at best, lack nuance and at worst cost more than they were intended to save.

What could happen if we engaged in such discussions informed by the ways in which properties of studio may be engaged, leveraged or impinged upon as different dimensions of cost are targeted for reform?

Consider some common efficiency moves regarding the cost of physical space: eliminating the dedicated space traditionally accorded to studio by rotating design students through these spaces for limited “studio periods,” eliminating open-ended studio spaces and moving just tools and equipment to a shared lab visited by students on as as-needed basis, or even taking studio online and eliminating the space requirement altogether. The property foregrounded in such moves may well be Cost, put forward as the argument for getting rid of the spaces. On the other hand, several properties may be used to argue that these spaces are essential. These can include: Place, or the physical and emotional space in which design work happens; Surfaces, which serve both as workspaces and support for creative processes and interactions; and Artefacts, the physical or digital products of the design process, which include not only the students’ work, but the exemplars, materials samples, and a range of objects used in both teaching and learning.

Assuming good faith intent to address cost dilemmas, what might be some questions raised in a properties-based discussion of, for example, the cost to institutions of physical studio spaces?

• What are some interdependent properties linked to Surfaces, Artefacts and Places (e.g., Listening in, Confidence to speak, Extended and distributed cognition)?
• By what means might some of those properties be supported in alternative spaces or digital spaces? (Many are, BTW, in currently realized studio programs and these could be investigated for their perceived or proven efficacy.)
• Recognizing that these interdependent properties should be supported, what are the relative costs of doing so viably in alternative spaces versus whatever might be the current physical space?

The outcomes of such discussions might bring to light false economies inherent in some potential solutions to the “cost of studio” dilemma for organizations, mitigating against seemingly obvious but uninformed decisions. Equally, design educators might be able to argue more effectively than dogmatically the complex value to education being realized in a physical studio and possibly to entertain viable – even attractive – alternatives.

I posit that the question to be asked about the cost of studio is a design question, not essentially a financial one. It is a question posed, as every design question is, within existing limitations, including fiscal limitations. That question is, “how may the complex and interdependent properties of studio education be given effective form?”