[co-teaching by Justin Hoffmann]

First, flexibility can play a central role in a variety of contexts: globalization, new (commanding) working conditions, futuristic power structures, the roots of creativity, and potentially nice ideas like cooperation, marriage etc.

Second, numerous aspects in our living-environments have a tendency to become more elastic: clothing (sport shoes), furniture (ashtrays and sinks), machines (very soon: cars) and (very very soon) screens.

What makes flexibility desirable? Can there be "too much" flexibility, and what happens when there is?

A state of freedom could be expressed as a state of being able to be flexible. The lack of a central plan or central leader can result in increased flexibility. Like being 'free', 'being flexible' is not really easy, there are decisions to be made: how large, how deep, how steep, where to stop, why to continue.

In addition to flexibility as the central theme, students will be invited to discover degrees of flexibility in design methods (their own and others): to deepen formerly unknown themes, finding methods to gather source-materials, in ways of finding money, goodwill, allowances. Designers have to replace themselves continuously into the minds of others: into clients and into 'the public'. Besides having basic qualities like being straightforward and sturdy, designers are more and more requested that they are self-determined, self-organizing and versatile.

Therefore, the obvious approach of design in this project will be flexible. The decisions to be made will be less focused one static finished article. The thinking will be, at first, about sets of rules ('recipes'), elastic grids and layout-systems. Techniques like zooming, ranging, scaling, grading and stretching will be promoted. The definitive appearance (on screen or in print) will depend on flexible data like actualities, user/viewer interaction, or chance.