Guest Lecturer: Dr. Austin Houldsworth

Dr. Austin Houldsworth is a lecturer in Product Design at Huddersfield University and an associate lecturer at RCA & Sheffield Hallam with an impressive educational background with an MA, PhD RCA and FRSA.

Dr. Austin started out by doing a course in Interactive Arts at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU). Houldsworth touched upon how back in the day, the course was ran through students creating their own brief which opened up the chance for each individual student to drive their own educational path. Most of Austin’s work actually culminated in a lot of blowing things up. While blowing up a white cube, Dr. Austin realised that he was not pleased with doing an art coursed and realised that he wanted to instead study Design. For his masters, he then decided to study Interactive Design at RCA.

The first part of this lecture was dedicated to explaining speculative design and the different ways it was approached throughout the years, mentioning the project of Futurama developed by Bel Geddes & General Motors and the Arroyo Seco Parkway in 1940.

The rest of the lecture was dedicated to talking about his own work and the companies that he has worked for throughout the years.

Image Taken From Dr. Austin Houldsworth Professional Portfolio

Whilst I do not have much interest in Product Design and it is not an area that I am looking on working in the future, I found the excitement and clear passion that Dr. Austin Houldsworth talked about it very inspiring. It was a very interesting lecture that I enjoyed watching.