Where Do We Go From Here? Rethinking the Design Studio after the COVID-19 Pandemic.

DRS (Design Research Society) 2022 ~ With Lesley-Ann Noel, North Carolina State University. Karin Jager, University of the Fraser Valley, Canada. Johnathon Strube, East Tennessee State University. Anne Galperin, State University of New York at New Paltz.

Five design educators apply a reflective framework to discuss the who, what, when, where, and why of the Design Studio, how it has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the future of design education at North American universities. The educators are dispersed geographically across Canada and the United States and teach in public higher education. They have a working and reflection group that has met weekly or bi-weekly for 18 months to discuss and write about their practice as design educators. They began meeting virtually in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic. This paper is a distillation of the groups' experiences.