Abstract
Postsecondary design education is largely taught through the pedagogical method known as the design studio in which students and teachers engage in activities that simulate a professional design practice. Its aim is for students to learn with and from one another to experience being a designer while engaging in the design process. In the process of this doing, students practice the design while also practicing for a professional design practice. Such learning is most enriching when students (and educators) are prepared to engage in meaningful conversation with peers, their work, and the discipline itself. In such an ideal, students are also — perhaps unknowingly — practicing a shared life. Based on Gadamer’s three different I-Thou encounters to understanding, I explore the possibilities and limitations of the 21st Century design studio as a site for practicing a practice, practicing for a profession, and perhaps even for practicing a shared life.