Seton Wakenshaw

Assistant Professor

School: Design Arts and Creative Industries

Director of Education in the School of Design at Northumbria University and Programme Leader of BA(Hons) Interior Design, teaching across all levels of the Programme, I am passionate about all areas of the subject and delivery. Working as part of the staff team, it is important that we continually question our offer to ensure that we deliver highly respected and successful programmes of study. I particularly enjoy the close working relationships developed with our students that continue into their future design careers in industry. Qualified in both Design and Architecture, I am particularly interested in creativity and individuality within designed environments, and how they are meticulously executed with an attention to detail and user experience.

Campus Address

School of Design
Northumbria University, City Campus East 2
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 8ST

Email Seton

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

My work utilises drawing as critical mediator in the development of commercial design practice, through the development and delivery of programmes of study that shape industry. Primarily this is evidenced through solid design processes and particularly the importance of drawing in the dialogues of idea generation, development, materiality and communication.

‘Drawing Dialogues’ - Every day we all pick up some form of mark making instrument, often it is to document our own thoughts or memories to ensure that we carry out tasks. Better still, we document creative thoughts that may be useful to us and others and act as necessary dialogue or mediation with ourselves.

As a creative academic we have discussions with students on a daily basis - briefings, tutorials, through to final presentations of design schemes / artefacts. The generally recognised term for this is ‘feedback’ (although the term ‘feed-forward’ is perhaps becoming a more reflective and useful description of this process). The term ‘Drawing Dialogues’ starts to think around how and what we communicate with students pertinent to our subject specialisms.

“And I now began with a sketch, rather than a technical drawing – which was important in helping me to visualise the eventual effect in three dimensions – however rough the sketch. It is something to do with the way my mind works.” Ken Adam

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Learning from Lasso: Team spirit and the intangible impact of atmosphere on studio culture in design education, Trueman, J., Wakenshaw, S. 1 May 2025, In: AMPS Proceedings
Place-Hacking the Design Studio: Contextualising Workplace Principles in Design Education, Wakenshaw, S., Trueman, J. 1 May 2025, In: AMPS Proceedings
Learning from Lasso: Team spirit and the intangible impact of atmosphere on studio culture in design education, Trueman, J., Wakenshaw, S. 3 Jun 2024, AMPS San Francisco: Learning. Life. Work
Place-Hacking: Contextualising Workplace Principles in Design Education, Wakenshaw, S., Trueman, J. 3 Jun 2024, AMPS San Francisco: Learning. Life. Work
Place-Hacking the Design Studio: Contextualising Workplace Principles in Design Education, Wakenshaw, S., Trueman, J. 3 Jun 2024, AMPS San Francisco: Learning. Life. Work
(Disruptive) Transitions, Thomas, J., Wakenshaw, S. 25 Jun 2021, The regional Three Rivers Learning and Teaching Conference 2021
Border control, Wakenshaw, S. 2012, Interiors education futures: contemporary insights, Faringdon, UK, Libri