Janja Lap: Distancing Oneself from a Servile Identity

Abstract In 1964, having secured a scholarship from the British Council, Slovenian architect and designer Janja Lap (born 1929) went to the Royal College of Art in London (RCA). She spent her first year there researching at the Department of Industrial Glass under the mentorship of Robert Goodden. In the second year of her residence, she joined the Research Unit for Hospitals at what was then known as the School of Industrial Design (Engineering). The paper analyses her research work, focusing on her ability to research and design complex systems while developing new design approaches to identified problems. In the paper, we show that Janja Lap was able to successfully apply the knowledge she had acquired to the Slovenian context, not overlooking the fact that her research work went almost entirely unnoticed in the Slovenian design profession. This despite her being the first and only Slovenian designer to have acquired knowledge in the field of design research during its pioneering period when the foundations of this academic discipline were being established in the UK.