Since 2001 RISD has been collaborating with the Institute for Civil Infrastructure Systems (ICIS) (www.icisnyy.org) in sponsoring an upper-level Innovation Studio that serves as a model for interdisciplinary collaboration among artists, designers and engineers. ICIS was founded in 1998 with five-year funding from the National Science Foundation to develop and disseminate new knowledge on sustaining, renewing and improving America’s infrastructure systems. It is based at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School for Public Service.

RISD, NYU and ICIS are now working together to develop innovative courses that link RISD design studios with the Wagner School’s policy and planning projects. This gives students at both institutions hands-on experience with approaching infrastructure challenges from a cross-disciplinary perspective. These collaborative efforts promote systemic thinking by bringing design, policy and planning students together to address the environmental, social and community issues at the core of large-scale infrastructure projects.

Hosted at RISD by the departments of Industrial Design and Landscape Architecture, the studio has focused on developing proposals for the reoccupation of a landfill in Phoenix, AZ, and for designing a new electrical power plant in Ramapo, NY. By consulting with scientists, engineers, government officials, urban planners and public policy graduate students and faculty from NYU, RISD students are learning to synthesize socio-political issues and scientific research in developing design solutions with practical applications.