Conran & Partners are a global design practice who are based in London and Hong Kong. The company came in to BCU to speak to MA Design Management students regarding their Global Perspectives module.
MA Design Management course leader, Nick Irvin, said of the collaboration:
“I initially contacted Tina Norden, a partner of the company, following a hotel experience in Hong Kong during an international teaching visit. I invited Tina to communicate their design process with our masters’ students during one of our global guest sessions for the module Global Perspectives.
“Ironically, the practice’s process is informed by extensive research and analysis of the client and was based on the user. They are very good at storytelling which resonated with me and is similar to how we encourage our students to research and analyse their study topics.
“Since then, we have developed future talks for online workshops, I subsequently invited Tina and her practice to be interviewed for an international conference for SPARK 2021, which was in association with the British Council in Hong Kong. Everything fitted into place beautifully.”
A postgraduate trip to London was also ran by the course, where students were a presentation by Conran & Partners, and then a case study brief to Taj hotels in London for a site tour, and observational case study. The students also went back to the architect’s studio for a critique to reflect on their findings.
Maghana Navin, an MA Design Management student, said:
“It was an incredibly constructive experience that helped us understand how a live client brief could be explored from an observational point of view.
“Conran & Partners were absolutely welcoming and engaging in introducing their massive project with Taj Hotels. The reflective learning and discussion from the case we observed later in the day was thoroughly insightful. Especially for a student who wasn't from an architecture or interior design background, the experience was new and different. It allowed me to analyse and raise questions from different perspectives.”
*Photograph courtesy of MA Design Management student, Alexander Ejovwokoghene Aghomi, and Nicholas Irvin (2023).