The unifi master degree in design: rethinking the post covid university-level education

The recent pandemic situation represented a huge change in everyday life, changing not only our habits, but also our way of thinking and relating to each other. The lockdowns have inevitably focused on everyday spaces, but also on digital ones, creating new routines and new practices, which are now the new normality. One of the main areas in which the lockdown has affected was certainly the school sector which, in Italy, in March 2020, was the first to be closed and which has, nowadays, not yet reopened completely. School environments related issues, particularly in the university environments, remain one of the most active and bitter debates to date. However, if on one hand the digital distance learning represented a mandatory and, sometimes, not excellent solution, on the other hand it represented an opportunity and a more inclusive learning solution. The digital learning methods have enabled the attending of university courses to a very different target of people, who, for several reasons, until that time can’t afford the costs related to the university life. According to this new normality, it is necessary to rethink and innovate the educational offer, in order to fit more the needs and behaviors of the new generations and of a different society. The present work aim is to present the pilot project made during the last year in the School of Architecture of the University of Florence, improving the Master Degree in Design by implementing an innovative offer mixing both the traditional and digital learning methods. For the design discipline this is a very innovative challenge, because the design courses have very specific needs and characteristics for which the digital distance could represent a weakness. The Master Degree in Design offers a blended experience in which moments of traditional teaching and others of digital are alternated. Moreover, the course proposes a flipped classroom model, encouraging the students’ autonomous learning when home and the direct practical experience while in presence. This course aims to promote a methodology that could be applied to the design courses degrees, improving the students’ participation and involvement through the use of innovative learning methods and the direct practical experience in partnership with local companies. The Master Degree in Design represents a real challenge in the public generalist academic Italian scenario, able to open a national debate on the new approaches of the Public Design Universities, and on the need to rethink the traditional national public academic offer in relation to the new and future society.