40 Years of ID in Queensland

My name is Dennis Hardy. In February 1975 I was appointed to the position of Industrial Design Lecturer in the School of the Built Environment Queensland Institute of Technology (QIT) later in 1986 to become QUT, a character shift from “I to U”, Institute to University.

Introduction
This is my reflective account of how Industrial design began at QIT. In November 1974 I had been working as a design consultant for five year having graduated with a First Class Honours in Industrial Design. I was currently working in London when I read an advert in the Times Educational Supplement, seeking to recruit practicing industrial designers with an interest in lecturing Industrial design at QIT Australia. I remember attended interview at the Australian Embassy in London with Edwin Codd Head of School who was both an architect and successful furniture manufacturer in Brisbane. He spoke passionately about his design philosophy and real world vision for the quintessential development of this relatively new school. Three year earlier in 1972 Edwin proposed a new undergraduate course at QIT, the Bachelor of Applied Science (B App Sci) Built Environment with strands allowing enrolment in six areas of study in Architecture (A), Industrial Design (ID), Urban and Regional Planning (URP), Landscape Architecture (LA), Building (B) and Quantity Surveying (QS).

Industrial Design formed one strand and at the same time the School of Architecture was restructured to School of the Built Environment with departments of Architecture Industrial Design, Landscape Architecture, Urban & Regional Planning and Building & Quantity Surveying. At that time the industrial design course had not been developed, requiring both design staff and student enrolments for the discipline. He went on to express concern about problem solving and technologies used in architecture and how industrial design knowledge might broaden the scope of design and technology in the school. The stranded academic program comprised of four major study areas; Man and Environment; Problem Solving (as a methodology); Communication and Technology. All first year students in the department engaged in these common study areas.

Shortly after that Eddy returned to Australia to negotiate the need for industrial design staff in the school with Don Frazer Director of QIT. A few days later I got a phone call informing that two positions had been appointed and I was offered a lecturing position which I accepted. The other position at senior lectureship was filled by Roy Ireland also from the UK.

In February 1975 I immigrated with my wife and eighteen month old daughter to take up not only an academic position but a new way of life for my family. These were exciting times for all of us.

The School of Built Environment
Roy Ireland was held up in the UK for several months, so I was the first industrial designer in the department. I had been there about a week having just set up an office in old D Block when I bumped into Eddy Codd in the main corridor. This wasn’t just any corridor it was the “School Network Corridor” where staff seemed to meet serendipitously but with uncanny accuracy. I later found out it was strategically linked to all offices, studios, common lecture theatre, workshops, resource centre, exhibition gallery, toilets and general school office at the entrance. Anyhow Eddy asked if I knew anything about ergonomics and I must have said yes because he seemed pleased or relieved by quickly adding that I would be lecturing this subject to third year architects in two days. That was my first of many corridor experiences. I spent the next two days avoiding corridors like the plague, hidden away in G Block library, researching and writing notes for my very first lecture in the school on anthropometrics   I later learnt from staff who became wonderful friends and colleagues that this was called “Flying by the seat of the pants” and that they all did it from time to time especially with new course development  So the old axiom you teach best what you’re learning most was the order of the day and that’s how ergonomics later to be named Human Factors (HF) was established in the school. I recall having lots of fun in this study area with architectural students interested in Industrial Design. Especially when they tried to figure out human measurements and their relationship to everyday tasks likes lifting, sitting and spatial movements associated with design. However it wasn’t until next semester when they encountered a community project that they finally realised the importance of human factors. Establishing Industrial Design in the Department In mid-first semester 1975 Roy Ireland the Senior Lecturer in ID arrived with his family to settle in Brisbane and to finally set about the arduous task of developing the Industrial design course and its core components within the Department of Architecture and Industrial Design. Roy was an experienced designer and a great inspiration to me. He had a wonderful sense of dry British humour. We spent many hours discussing the integration and development of industrial design alongside the well-established big brother architecture. We realised that in order to establish Industrial design and related study area components within the 3 year Bachelor of Applied Science Program we needed to cover common ground for both disciplines. Our strategy was to gradually introduce ergonomics, industrial design and product manufacture into the study areas of second and third year Man and Environment, Problem Solving and Technology. Bearing in mind first year was not discipline specific. So we finally had the early beginnings of an industrial design Identity in the department in preparation for 1976(ID) enrolments. Roy also set about developing the Postgraduate Diploma in Industrial Design to allow students from the undergraduate course to advance their professional studies and later to gain course recognition by the then Industrial Design Institute of Australia (IDIA).

By the end of semester one, we had outlined second and third year Industrial design for problem solving. I had successfully completed ergonomics in man and environment and prepared a product manufacturing outline for next semester’s technology study area in third year. As I mentioned early human factors was a key component in third year and represented a paradigm shift in design thinking. This was because, Man and Environment in first year was involved with broad study area objectives, to trace the development of human society. This was evident in a series of video documentaries shown to all students, “The Ascent of Man" by Dr Jacob Bronowski. Human society in first year and a subsequent study area shift to human factors in third year, integrated the social, physical and psychological determinants found in human society, with human factors. This pivotal view point led to the first Industrial design live project, based on community service for third year undergraduate architectural students interested in Industrial design.

Industrial Design Project Inception

Prior to second semester beginning I wanted to find a meaningful design project for third year students capable of broadening their humanistic scope in design thinking. At the same time I also wanted to take them out of their comfort zone to experience real problem solving, human factors and product development that could make a positive contribution to people’s lives.

I visited the Montrose Home for Crippled Children at Corinda and spoke with June Davies Occupational Therapist (OT) about setting up a community service project that would allow staff and students from QIT to engage in a design project that might help physically disadvantaged children. June was immediately receptive to the idea talking at length about the everyday physical and psychological problems and needs of children in her care. She also indicated they were currently working with and eight year old boy with a serious physical disability from birth. June went on to explain that simple tasks, we all take for granted, such as using everyday eating utensils at the dining table was not possible for this child. She informed that the medical condition was known as Arthrogryposis which literally meant “curving of joints” in a permanently bent position. This meant he could not use his hands for eating in a conventional way. She also added they had made an aid which Jamie wasn’t too happy with and with his permission would I like to see him trying to use it. We went to the OT Room and there sitting at a table was a little boy with his therapist and on his head was some kind of mechanical device which he was clearly unhappy to use.

Figure 1.

I’ll never forget those first moments of eye to eye contact with Jamie, a receptive and intelligent child. He talked openly about his inability to use his hands like normal kids, expressing his deepest wish to one day go to a restaurant with his family and have a meal without other people staring at him. So the first Industrial Design brief for Architectural Students with an interest in ID was focused on Community Service activities at Montrose and other Disability Centres, giving them a choice of live projects in their last semester of the undergraduate course. The student experience at Montrose was one of care and dedication in their approach to problem solving. Their main concern in designing for Jamie’s disability was to somehow facilitate his hand movements enabling him to effectively use an eating utensil bypassing the need for any kind of head device figure1. At this early stage students worked closely with the OT staff, with Jamie happily at the centre of attention. This was an interesting and very exciting time for us, but most of all for Jamie.

Figure 2 captured this priceless moment in Jamie’s life where hearts and minds met, never to be forgotten. At this time there was also a tremendous change in Jamie’s self-confidence empowered by his independent ability to use his hand which he thought was not possible to do. This was a wonderful moment in his life and needless to say in ours to. Jamie finally realised his wish and went with his family to a restaurant for a meal, but that’s another story. I like real life stories and thank you for listening. Epilogue Industrial design holds the remarkable ability to design for the many through manufacturing technologies and mass production but let us not forget the “starfish story” in which a lone figure was seen on a beach where many star fish lay dying on the shore. She was bending down and picking up each star fish and casting it back into ocean. When asked what difference that could possibly make to the many, she bent down picked up another star fish cast it back into the water and said it made a difference to that one. I would like to think that in some small way industrial design made the same difference to Jamie. Over the past 40 years it has been my privilege to work at QUT with the many outstanding colleagues and students of this discipline far too many to mention here but I must say that had it not been for Eddy Codd at QIT perhaps none of this would have happened.