The University of the future

The post-pandemic world needs creative thinkers in all disciplines, mainly in project planning and design; people able to face complex challenges and develop innovative solutions. The post-pandemic world will be increasingly characterised by proximity: from a measurable spatial sense to a physical and imma- terial relational one, qualities required for a social and territorial organisation, individual and community rights which are created not only through physical proximity, but increasingly strengthened and integrated by flows of data, information and knowledge. Big Data, the semantic web, digital twinning and multidimensional models, micro- and macro- simulations and systems for the col- lection, management and interpretation of data, information and knowledge not only point towards new modalities of scientific and professional work for creative design, but they can also open a sce- nario for universities of new educational ecosystems. In this sense, given the responsibility of universities in the process of training the designers, professionals and researchers of tomor- row, it is necessary to ask ourselves what new educational and knowledge environments are already available today where teachers, researchers, experts and students will be able to perform their activities, an environment in which students can have the opportunity to experience the university as an open system rich in relationships, full of experience and charged with knowledge. For the area of artistic and design creativity, this goal is also a chal- lenge to build a structured educational and training environment of its own. It is a common belief that creative people have a natural gift, but research and experience have shown that creativity is a skill that can be taught, practised and developed. We as teachers/re- searchers of architecture, design and urban planning have always placed at the centre of education the processes of transmission of knowledge, skills and abilities characterised by the master/ap- prentice relationship inherited from the tradition of the Academy of Fine Arts, of which we were part, and from the long tradition of learning through doing, typical of architects until the end of the nineteenth century, which we have combined with the most recent engineering and scientific traditions.In our design courses students are encouraged to develop multiple ideas, to demand verification and criticism, to create an approxi- mate prototype, to discuss it with other students, to analyze it and defend it against criticism, test it and perfect it through a series of iterative explorations, a recursive process of “trial and error”, until reaching a solution that is considered, provisionally, satisfactory, “satisficing” as Herbert Simon would have it. In short, if we want to work towards offering students a creative environment, an innovation-oriented ecosystem to support univer- sity students and alumni in their search to explore, imagine and plan the future of the world, if we want to stimulate and enhance the innovative power of individuals, of young architects, designers, landscape architects and urban planners, we need to imagine, de- sign and build a new physical, digital, scientific/experimental and emotional ecosystem, cooperative and competitive, full of experien- ces and stimuli, supported by social norms, spaces and services, tools and platforms, teachers, experts and tutors that galvanise and animate the most intense collaboration and interaction between peers. We believe that higher education for creativity and design, and beyond, needs both a culture and a methodology oriented towards knowledge and design skills, and also an open environment in whi- ch connection and collaboration, sharing different visions, knowle- dge and skills are the fundamental traits. The current experience, of apparent distance, has shown us that it is possible to bring peo- ple closer together through digital tools, with which, by integrating face-to-face tools with those of distance education, we can better build and manage the university as a fluid community able to bring together the right mix of diversity of people, knowledge, cultures, with shared intentions and similar values, so that we will be able to train creative, innovative and effective designers necessary for future societies. Professional competition will reside in the ability to innovate, on creativity based on rigorous methods, on “reflective and responsi- ble creativity”, on the ability to operate on both the material and digital dimensions of design and production processes. We must work to create an environment of open learning, a creative envi- ronment capable of helping students to acquire ways of thinking, the cognitive strategies and the skills needed to face ambiguous issues, understand multiple points of view, collaborate between di- sciplines, and imagine and create new solutions. A cognitive environment capable of nurturing connections, of bringing together students of different backgrounds, of different cultures around design problems of different scales and different domains; a blended research, training and operational environ- ment of experimentation, capable of nourishing itself and enhan- cing all useful tools, from direct master/apprentice interaction to all digital tools, to distance learning platforms, to the semantic web, to procreative and cooperative design and augmented reality .