Big Ideas Lecture Series: Design and the Beginner’s Mind: Inquiry Over Habit

Join us for The Big Ideas Lecture Series for “Design and the Beginner’s Mind: Inquiry Over Habit” with Paula Teixiera (Computer Aided Drafting) and Robert Turek (Architectural Studies) on March 5 from 6-7pm at Bemis Public Library. The Big Ideas Lecture Series brings faculty from Arapahoe Community College into the community to share fresh insights around questions connected to the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Hosted by Bemis Library, each talk is free, public, and designed to spark thought and conversation.

Design does not begin with answers. It begins with informed questions. When solutions are committed to before a problem is fully understood, assumptions harden and opportunities for deeper insight are lost. The beginner’s mindset offers an alternative. It is not the absence of knowledge, but the discipline of suspending habit long enough to engage context, precedent, and need with care.

This lecture explores a nationally competitive student design project developed in a community college setting and completed in a single semester by students with little or no prior architecture coursework. Through intentional scaffolding, real constraints, and iterative feedback, students learned to engage complex design challenges thoughtfully and rigorously. 2 teams placed in the top ten among more than one hundred undergraduate and graduate competitors, demonstrating how inquiry-driven processes can support both access and excellence.

Co-presented by faculty with architectural and international design experience, the talk examines design as an act of service and sensitivity rather than heroism or grand gesture. It focuses on how designers can learn from precedent without reproducing it, and how careful research can replace stylistic imitation as the primary source of inspiration. Rather than beginning with images or assumed solutions, students were encouraged to suspend familiar references long enough to understand context, history, and need on their own terms. The presentation invites educators, designers, and community members alike to reconsider where design talent lives, and what becomes possible when learning environments are designed to prioritize inquiry, judgment, and responsibility over habit.

For more information or accommodations, contact Patrice Session at patrice [dot] session [at] arapahoe [dot] edu.