The junior studio expands and interprets the skills and concepts introduced in the sophomore studios. The primary focus of the semester is an experimentally based investigation of bending and forming techniques - molded plywood, bent lamination, steam bending, and vacuum-formed plastic. While focused on the use of wood and plastic materials, an experimental approach is expected in the studio. Students are encouraged to conceptually explore skills and materials to develop a personal design approach and studio practice. The semester culminates in a final design, in which students utilize learned techniques to create one-offs, objects intended for batch production or prototypes designed for production.

Prerequisite: FD-2502

Major Requirement | BFA Furniture Design

In this junior studio students are presented with the idea of using metal to develop furniture forms. While the primary metal used to investigate form is mild steel, properties and techniques are also presented that apply to stainless steel, aluminum, copper, brass and bronze. Students become proficient in TIG welding, and are introduced to arc welding, spot welding, gas welding, brazing and soldering. Basic structural properties of steel are investigated through a series of short projects designed to inform students of the appropriate forms and applications. Basic and more advanced fabrication techniques, metal surface treatments, as well as metal finishing are also topics of class demonstrations.

Prerequisite: FD-2502

Major Requirement | BFA Furniture Design

In this junior studio students are presented with the idea of using metal to develop furniture forms. While the primary metal used to investigate form is mild steel, properties and techniques are also presented that apply to stainless steel, aluminum, copper, brass and bronze. Students become proficient in TIG welding, and are introduced to arc welding, spot welding, gas welding, brazing and soldering. Basic structural properties of steel are investigated through a series of short projects designed to inform students of the appropriate forms and applications. Basic and more advanced fabrication techniques, metal surface treatments, as well as metal finishing are also topics of class demonstrations.

Major Requirement | BFA Furniture Design

Both collectively and individually; and through informal and centralized systems of training and
patronage; artists, designers, and craftspeople throughout history have dedicated themselves
(whether by passion or coercion) to contributing to their culture with their work. From the
artisans of ancient Egypt, to the Shakers of Revolutionary colonial America, to the weavers of
the Navajo nation, these networks of people, materials, and technologies that drive the creation,
distribution, and use of furniture and other useful objects are a microcosm of larger cultural
concerns. For artists and designers, these “cultures of production” are especially compelling
encapsulations of the values, priorities, stories, and conditions of groups of people. By
investigating the ways that meaning is embedded and accumulated in material culture, insights
about this culture are revealed - whether nobility or commoners, from ancient times or
contemporary life. This course has a deliberate focus on “cultures of production” that have been
historically underrepresented in American design education and aims to promote the students’
ability to think critically about the status quo and to seek just and inclusive approaches. Through
design and craft, students will be introduced to methods, techniques, forms, typologies and
materials that challenge, expand, and deconstruct prevailing disciplinary paradigms.
The content of the course will vary each semester, with each iteration of the course focused on
a particular “culture of production”. Students will explore how and why this group of people
make and use certain things and their significance both within and beyond these communities.
This will involve considering the associated methods, typologies, economies, traditions,
materials, motivations, and individuals that form this culture, as well as the power dynamics that
affect their positionality and status. Designing and making objects with genuine materials at full
scale will be emphasized as particularly vital means for artists and designers to learn about the
greater contexts - personal, political, historical, technological, geographical, and otherwise -
surrounding the topic of the course.

Major Requirement | BFA Furniture Design

This course will provide an opportunity for students to design and make cabinets of various types with doors and drawers. Students will learn the subtleties of casework and fitting doors, drawers and hardware. While a wide range of design approaches from very simple to complex will be encouraged, this course will be an especially good opportunity for those students who wish to explore advanced woodworking.

Prerequisite: FD-2502

Elective

This class will focus on the challenges and opportunities of designing furniture for mass production. Students in this course will be introduced to the numerous challenges designers face in developing furniture as consumer products, especially as it relates to market fit (determining who customers are and what they need), production (how to make it), and distribution (getting it to customers). Through interactions with industry professionals, analysis of case studies, and applied research, students will gain practical insights into the production furniture industry, with exposure to diverse design practices across its many facets. As a studio course, work will be based on design projects that challenge students to propose a commercially viable furniture collection that addresses the current realities of both the furniture industry and the market for its offerings.

Elective

Lighting design is an ever-growing category of furniture and product design, constantly evolving alongside technological advances in available lamp hardware. This hands-on course is an opportunity for students to explore the various types of lamp options, including incandescent, halogen, fluorescent, and LED. Students are first provided with the technical skills and safety factors involved in creating and wiring a lamp, to adding more complicated items such as switches, dimmers, and hardware, and finally moving on to designing and creating a body of functional lighting pieces. We will cover various lamp typologies (sconces, floor lamps, table lamps, chandeliers, pendants, etc.), as well as light as art through installation and sculpture. Students are encouraged to work in a variety of materials and scales, developing their designs from sketches, models, and renderings, to a fully realized object. Designs will evolve through in-class discussions, pin-ups, and critiques. This class will focus on the design and fabrication of lighting as an object in a space, rather than the lighting of a space.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00 - $100.00

Elective

This is a required studio for seniors that develops advanced theory and practice in furniture design. Projects include experimental seating design and an introduction to upholstery techniques. Seniors develop a Degree Project Proposal along with a project that explores and tests the proposal.

Prerequisite: FD-2521

Major Requirement | BFA Furniture Design

This is a required studio for seniors that develops advanced theory and practice in furniture design. Projects include experimental seating design and an introduction to upholstery techniques. Seniors develop a Degree Project Proposal along with a project that explores and tests the proposal.

Prerequisite: FD-2521

Major Requirement | BFA Furniture Design

In this course we examine individual studio practices in depth through collecting, drawing, and writing. We approach writing as a mutable medium, one that can be built up, torn apart, cobbled together, patch-worked, polished, shined, exploded, and altogether constructed in a way that is not dissimilar to the way an object emerges in the studio. We examine the ways that writing as a part of making can spark ideas for visual work, enrich subliminal visual narratives, connect ideas that may seem disparate, collect a wide variety of sources in a small space, act as a place for reflection, and ultimately be an active and integral part of making. In the process, we will unearth themes that permeate students' artistic work in a way that forges future paths for creative exploration while protecting some of the mysteries that are particular to an embodied practice. Students will begin to develop a personal vocabulary that parallels the richly developed language of their visual work, laying the foundation for their Senior Degree Project. The primary aim of this class is for students to develop a better understanding of their own practice and its context through writing and archiving influences and inspirations, laying the conceptual foundation and establishing a specific theme for the spring semester Senior Degree Project Report.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Senior Furniture Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Furniture Design

In this course we examine individual studio practices in depth through collecting, drawing, and writing. We approach writing as a mutable medium, one that can be built up, torn apart, cobbled together, patch-worked, polished, shined, exploded, and altogether constructed in a way that is not dissimilar to the way an object emerges in the studio. We examine the ways that writing as a part of making can spark ideas for visual work, enrich subliminal visual narratives, connect ideas that may seem disparate, collect a wide variety of sources in a small space, act as a place for reflection, and ultimately be an active and integral part of making. In the process, we will unearth themes that permeate students' artistic work in a way that forges future paths for creative exploration while protecting some of the mysteries that are particular to an embodied practice. Students will begin to develop a personal vocabulary that parallels the richly developed language of their visual work, laying the foundation for their Senior Degree Project. The primary aim of this class is for students to develop a better understanding of their own practice and its context through writing and archiving influences and inspirations, laying the conceptual foundation and establishing a specific theme for the spring semester Senior Degree Project Report.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Senior Furniture Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Furniture Design

Seniors will complete their final portfolio works in this studio. Seniors will design and execute a final degree project. The degree project will be individualized according to student interest.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Senior Furniture Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Furniture Design

Seniors will complete their final portfolio works in this studio. Seniors will design and execute a final degree project. The degree project will be individualized according to student interest.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Senior Furniture Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Furniture Design

This course is an introductory survey of the history of furniture. An emphasis is placed on developing a methodology for understanding historical context and transferable critical thinking through furniture. The fundamental methodology presents furniture design as an expression of interdependent relationships involving technology, identity and culture. The course will include lectures, sketching, writing, discussion and exams as well as learning from direct observation of objects including many in the RISD Museum.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Furniture Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Furniture Design