Solving Titanic Problems: The contribution of design-thinking and knowledge building.

This paper explores the contribution that the principles of knowledge building can bring to the process and practices of design thinking in terms of developing more innovative concepts. Also how these processes, practices and principles can be effectively communicated to novice designers. The rational for combining design-thinking and knowledge building is explained and an integrated model proposed. Design thinking and knowledge building are two rather ambiguous concepts and in order to help communicate them to students a “wicked” problem was required. We chose a titanic one, specifically the sinking of RMS Titanic in 1912 after striking an iceberg.