INDESEM | The International Design Seminar: Its Emerging, Development and Interplay with the Education in Delft

INDESEM has always been an explosion of one week of learning without education. Students themselves are responsible for everything and it is them who make sure that the technical and academic staff warm to the idea of breaking plenty of rules for a week. And you should see what happens when you do! Work continues into the early hours and the building is turned inside out to get at its hidden qualities. The daily routine is disrupted and the cleaners are made aware of their importance. Each time a group of students comes together to perform the task of getting this event off the ground, their own regular studies are largely ignored for the duration. It is only much later that they realize just what they have received in return when, after their studies, it transpires that designing and realizing a building demands a comparable attitude where it is again all down to anticipating, deliberating, seeking out conditions, making (and keeping) appointments.Those taking part come from all over the world, perhaps initially attracted by names and by the Netherlands, but also by the thrill of actually being able to meet and talk with so many others who are in the same boat. The task is no more than a pretext and catalyst for getting into contact with others and discussing with them. The results are merely conceptual models of thinking. The performance that needs generating is to get a group of complete strangers to formulate and present an idea and go on to defend it against all others. In this way, the idea of INDESEM is inciting glimpses of an alternative way of learning, directed to thinking instead of just cultivating external attractiveness. And it deserves to be continued in some way to point at what might be a lesson for the regular education.