• Archives of design research
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• v.19 no.2 s.64
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• pp.365-374
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• 2006

A 'Readymade' is an everyday object selected and designated as art. The term was coined by Marcel Duchamp to describe his artistic process based on the attempt to destroy the notion of the uniqueness of the art object: his influence went for beyond the art world affecting all design activities based on creativity. The purpose of this study is to investigate the ready-made technique from an educational point of view. Starting from Duchamp experience and his further influence on the design world, the study aims to demonstrate the value of the ready-made technique as a basic element in the education of young designers. The research method is based on the empirical observation of the results of the same project assigned to forty different students in different universities. The collected results were grouped in four families according to each specific generative method: constructive, conceptual, aggregative and elaborative. These four categories, derived by the observation of the results, represent tangible variations of the same disciplined technique. This flexibility demonstrates the value of the ready-made process as a foundation practice particularly indicated for young designers. These are the main skills students developed through its application to design projects; exploring and reconsidering attitude, recycling issues, new identity to familiar objects, focus on ideas.