07/10/2025
Earlier this year, I shared how 2025 has been, for me, the year when my relationship with the Chinese market took on a new depth.
For over two decades, I’ve worked almost daily with Chinese designers, engineers, and suppliers — but this year I decided to go further, focusing on knowledge sharing and cultural exchange.
That’s why I was happy to accept the invitation from my friend and colleague, Prof. Carlo Vannicola, to join the teaching team of the UNICAM Summer School — a 12-week program by the School of Architecture and Design in Ascoli Piceno.
Seven talented students from Nanjing Forestry University joined to immerse themselves in Italian design culture.
I led the course Design: Evolution and Innovation, aiming to share my way of approaching design — starting with finding meaning, before form and function.
Teaching Chinese students is inspiring but challenging: they’re respectful and attentive, yet often reserved, with the language barrier adding another layer.
After three days of lectures focused on research, I wanted to unlock their creativity. So I introduced the Brainwriting 6-3-5 technique: 6 participants, 3 ideas each, 5 minutes per round (but you can adapt based on the situation). Students rotated their idea sheets, building on each other’s thoughts.
By the end, we had generated 147 ideas — and, more importantly, broken the ice.
Next, they cut out each idea, grouped them into macro-categories, and used Dotmocracy (sticker voting) to select the most promising ones. This simple visual method made participation easy and gave everyone a voice.
For me, this captured why I love teaching: not just transferring knowledge, but creating the conditions for creativity to emerge, even across cultures and languages.
