My doctoral research critically explored design education in South African higher education through employing post-qualitative methodology. The research was approached from new materialist, posthuman theoretical perspectives. This implied that I set out to practise design research/education aimed at productive transformation in the institution that I work. I critically negotiated a range of individual experiences of being engaged in design/research/teaching in the Visual Communication Design curriculum at Stellenbosch University.

In the era of the fourth industrial revolution that proposes an increasingly automated future, designers need not lose focus on the discipline’s important role in social design and innovation. Such an undertaking becomes difficult when the discipline of design itself has inbuilt biases and inequalities. Gender bias is one such prejudice that design educators and researchers need to become more aware of and engage with, not only to prepare our students for the workplace but also to begin to change the patriarchal dominance of the design industry and hence the equity of the discipline itself.

This paper reflects on aspects that impact on an interdisciplinary shift motivated by technology‐transfer within a University of Technology (UoT). Discussion focuses on the integrated use of Additive Manufacturing (AM) as automated layer by layer 3D printing product design and development technology within a 3D Art and Design studio-practice environment. As emerging technology, AM’s impact has redefined the procedural framework and required knowledge coherence for the development of 3D objects.

This paper seeks to extend Donald Schön’s often-referenced and widely-accepted observations that design, specifically architectural design, is a reflective “conversation with materials” consisting of a cyclical process of “reflection-in-action”. Specifically, the paper argues for the extended applicability of these observations to the question of analysis of existing architecture.

The Education White Paper (SA, 1997) identifies that the knowledge economy is dependent on knowledge workers that can contribute to the economical development of the country. The White Paper further motivates that it is the role of higher education to provide education and training to develop the skills and innovations that are necessary for national economical development and successful participation in the world economy.

In order to understand the origin and the development of the Italian designer's training, it is crucial to show the industrial and cultural context of this country, which made the 'Made in Italy' successful.

Products nature is certainly what has mainly contributed to such success, but product is only the output of an original industrial structure, as Italy was different from other countries with the same economic development: it has taken up a production system going by routes different from the big industry - economies of scale, standardization, serialization.

Many corporate firms, although operating within this age of information and the knowledge economy, still rely on the skill and expertise of individuals to the extent that the ‘organisational memory’ can be severely weakened when that individual’s store of knowledge (skill, know-how, individual memory of corporate behaviour) ceases to function as an input. This highlights a parallel lack of system in organising collective and strategic knowledge - to collate and retain the most valuable and necessary units of knowledge. These circumstances will be compared to the general technikon situation, in which a related, academic, lack of knowledge management is all too evident.