Design as a Curriculum Logic in Interdisciplinary Engineering Education: A Comparative Study of Four International Cases

Abstract

In the context of China’s New Engineering Education reform and broader international efforts to renew engineering curricula, design is increasingly invoked as a means of cultivating integrative, collaborative, and socially responsive capabilities. Yet design is often treated either as a discrete course component or as a late-stage project skill, rather than as a logic through which engineering knowledge, experiential learning, and real-world problem framing can be organized. This article examines how design becomes embedded in interdisciplinary engineering education through a comparative analysis of four internationally visible cases: Singapore University of Technology and Design, UCL Engineering, Charles Sturt University Engineering, and Delft University of Technology. Drawing on published literature, institutional materials, and the MIT-commissioned global review of engineering education, the study uses four analytical dimensions: curriculum structure, the role of design, experiential learning mechanisms, and institutional support. The comparison identifies four pathways through which design is institutionalized in engineering education: philosophy-embedded, architecture-restructured, context-embedded, and capability-formation pathways. The findings suggest that the educational value of design lies not only in supporting creativity or prototyping, but in functioning as a curriculum logic that connects disciplinary knowledge, problem definition, iterative action, teamwork, reflection, and social responsibility. The article concludes by translating these insights into design-oriented principles for China’s New Engineering Education reform, emphasizing that international models should not be copied wholesale but interpreted through local curricular, institutional, and cultural conditions.