Animals have enjoyed a prominent place in art for as long as humans have been creating it, beginning with the caves in Lascaux. Along the way they have figured prominently in myths fables and allegories, fulfilling symbolic roles in a wealth of picture books, and appeared as frequent players in visual metaphors employed by editorial illustrators. This course will provide opportunities for students to work within a variety of illustration genres, finding their own approach to working with representations of animal life. There will be in-depth exploration of creature anthropomorphism and its uses- from social and political satire to its capabilities in a wide range of storytelling methods. From JJ Granville to Spiegelman's Maus, to children's book greats like Richard Scarry and Arthur Geisert, the human-animal/animal-human is an enduring motif that will continue to be reinvented and expanded upon. Students will have the ability to channel projects and assignments towards formats of their choosing - including painting and other gallery-based practices, children's publishing, artist books, comics and zines.

This course fulfills the Illustration Concepts Elective requirement for Illustration Students.

Elective

Feminist writers and filmmakers have used their utopian/dystopian fiction and films to comment on the politics of gender and to imagine worlds where the standard systems of male/female (or even human/machine) do not work. In this course we will examine feminist utopias/dystopias across historical periods and within the context of feminist and queer theories about gender, race, sexuality, environmental justice, reproductive rights/justice, colonization, capitalism, and the connections between humans and other animals. The course will be primarily discussion based. Students will be asked to keep and hand in informal journals, give occasional presentations, and produce two research papers/projects.

Elective

The course aims to create sufficient awareness of what yields life on earth, and a complementary biocentric view of the world. New ethical and critical challenges are continually presented to human society with the growth of material science and its implications for design; the course introduces sources and research references to assist with our understanding of these challenges. We explore aspects of human knowledge of living systems, providing a research-based approach to such topics as BioDesign; biomimicry in materials, processes, and structures; functional morphology and the cognitive phenomena of Biophilia. The 'affinities and aversions' we as humans have regarding natural living systems are in everything: from the spaces we inhabit to the metaphors we employ in order to understand complexity in general, including issues connected with health, recuperation and resilience. Using the recently extended facilities and resources of the Edna Lawrence Nature Lab, faculty and graduate students together create opportunities to experiment, observe, and learn about the networked aspects of living systems, materials, structures and processes. Theoretical frameworks associated with the biology of living systems, the growth and formation of natural materials including the contemporary revolutions in evolutionary theory are introduced and examples discussed with visiting specialists.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $30.00

Elective

The course aims to create sufficient awareness of what yields life on earth, and a complementary biocentric view of the world. New ethical and critical challenges are continually presented to human society with the growth of material science and its implications for design; the course introduces sources and research references to assist with our understanding of these challenges. We explore aspects of human knowledge of living systems, providing a research-based approach to such topics as BioDesign; biomimicry in materials, processes, and structures; functional morphology and the cognitive phenomena of Biophilia. The 'affinities and aversions' we as humans have regarding natural living systems are in everything: from the spaces we inhabit to the metaphors we employ in order to understand complexity in general, including issues connected with health, recuperation and resilience. Using the recently extended facilities and resources of the Edna Lawrence Nature Lab, faculty and graduate students together create opportunities to experiment, observe, and learn about the networked aspects of living systems, materials, structures and processes. Theoretical frameworks associated with the biology of living systems, the growth and formation of natural materials including the contemporary revolutions in evolutionary theory are introduced and examples discussed with visiting specialists.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $30.00

Elective

Cut through the hype and excitement surrounding generative AI by understanding for yourself what these tools can and cannot do. Through this course students will learn to understand, design, and build with generative AI. The class is a mix of theory and hands-on work. Students develop practical skills in designing, building, and testing with generative AI. Readings and discussions address key concepts in AI, their ethical implications, foundations in human computer interaction and human AI interaction, and design implications for creators. Students will experiment with bringing generative AI into their existing creative practice including writing, two-dimensional designs, illustrations, 3D, and product design. No previous experience with either the theory or use of AI is required but students will need to learn to use the tools through course tutorials and independent work.

Elective

Cape Town, South Africa is predicted to be the first major city to run out of water. Day Zero, when the taps will run dry, is expected in Spring 2018. How did we get here, and how do we fix it? Learn the science behind the planet's water and how humanity interacts with it. We will examine the causes and results of drought, salt-water contamination of wells and streams, shrinking aquifers and more. The goals of this course are threefold:

(1) To clarify how water works in earth's systems

(2) To outline how humans interact and leave their mark on every step of these cycles

(3) To encourage students to understand these water issues as challenges in need of the intelligent and creative solutions that they are equipped to deliver.

No prior science background is required.

Elective

Extreme environments create extraordinary challenges to human physiological and psychological existence where common expectations for safety, comfort and performance need to be radically redefined. Putting people into unfamiliar or highly dangerous surroundings requires an extreme level of attention to design. It is not enough to design technologies, systems, or equipment that function according to basic technical specifications without incorporating the human needs of the users, the people that will interact with them.

Designing for the physical, emotional and psychological needs of astronauts may seem like an esoteric challenge but it is in situations like these that common assumptions no longer hold true and every aspect of a design must be considered in a new context. This questioning of assumptions and awareness of context are crucial for innovation in a wide array of domains. This studio uses extreme environments as a pedagogical approach to focus design on human needs and interactions, while emphasizing creativity and innovation in tightly constrained situations. 

The skills, methodologies and knowledge acquired in this studio are applicable in a broad range of domains of which aerospace is just one small subset.

This spring the Design for Extreme Environments Studio will consider how to design spacecraft and habitats suitable for extreme environments and long-duration missions, such as those to the Moon or Mars. Students will work in teams, with input from experts at NASA and elsewhere, to provide creative ideation and innovative concepts while helping create the future of space travel.

NASA’s Artemis campaign, over the next years, will explore the Moon for scientific discovery, technology advancement, and to learn how to live and work on another world as we prepare for human missions to Mars. NASA will land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon, while collaborating with commercial and international partners to establish the first long-term presence on the Moon.
This studio is funded by a grant from the RI Space Grant Consortium, Michael Lye PI, so there are no lab fees and minimal out of pocket expenses. The grant will cover these costs.

One possible short field trip - only during class times.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design, MID (2.5yr): Industrial Design

With widespread emphasis on the written word in a globalized Western society, it becomes easy to forget that writing is a relatively anomalous human practice. In Art Before Time, our focus will be on the visual, tactile, and kinetic practices of the deep past, and the epistemological methods (and their limitations) that we Moderns use to decipher and interpret the ancient traces left long before there were written records to document them. We will employ and scrutinize ethnographic analogy as a method for understanding the lifeways of our distant ancestors in the Pleistocene, while using experimental archaeology to form shared experiences that engage in the most persistent artistic traditions of our species. In so doing, we explore the changing place of human activity in ecosystems across the Northern Hemisphere, the origins and varieties of symbolic thought and the fluctuating roles of art and architecture in spiritual ecologies throughout a vast span of time.

Elective

Theories of NatureCulture is a graduate-level critical and cultural theory seminar with a focus on environmental justice approaches that lays the foundations for advanced study in the interdisciplinary field of nature-culture-sustainability studies, introducing students to vital topics, theories, and perspectives in the environmental humanities.

Why does mainstream US environmental thought conceive of nature and human culture as separate? Are they really a dichotomy? What does it mean to describe something as “natural”? What do the humanities and arts have to contribute to environmental studies and environmental justice? This iteration of Theories of NatureCulture asks students to engage with a variety of cultural production, including poetry, essays, short fiction, film, music, and critical theory to analyze how the concept of nature is represented in different cultural imaginaries, as well as the embodied and material consequences of its representations. The course will expand and complicate students’ understandings of environmentalism by asking them to carefully and thoughtfully engage with a variety of ecological modes of thought, including: queer ecologies, ecofeminisms, Black ecological imaginings, Indigenous environmental thought, anticolonial environmentalisms, eco-crip theory, and Black feminist ecologies, among others.

In this seminar, we will carefully read and discuss a range of texts centered on environmental issues and concepts. Our readings and discussions will be complemented by field trips, writing assignments, group projects, and site visits. Close engagement with theoretical material will enable us to consider how different styles and disciplinary practices encourage particular forms of comprehension and interaction with the environment. This course is open to all graduate level students and to junior, senior/fifth year undergraduate students, with priority given to those in the NCSS and other Liberal Arts concentrations pending seat availability.

Elective

Theories of NatureCulture is a graduate-level critical and cultural theory seminar with a focus on environmental justice approaches that lays the foundations for advanced study in the interdisciplinary field of nature-culture-sustainability studies, introducing students to vital topics, theories, and perspectives in the environmental humanities.

Why does mainstream US environmental thought conceive of nature and human culture as separate? Are they really a dichotomy? What does it mean to describe something as “natural”? What do the humanities and arts have to contribute to environmental studies and environmental justice? This iteration of Theories of NatureCulture asks students to engage with a variety of cultural production, including poetry, essays, short fiction, film, music, and critical theory to analyze how the concept of nature is represented in different cultural imaginaries, as well as the embodied and material consequences of its representations. The course will expand and complicate students’ understandings of environmentalism by asking them to carefully and thoughtfully engage with a variety of ecological modes of thought, including: queer ecologies, ecofeminisms, Black ecological imaginings, Indigenous environmental thought, anticolonial environmentalisms, eco-crip theory, and Black feminist ecologies, among others.

In this seminar, we will carefully read and discuss a range of texts centered on environmental issues and concepts. Our readings and discussions will be complemented by field trips, writing assignments, group projects, and site visits. Close engagement with theoretical material will enable us to consider how different styles and disciplinary practices encourage particular forms of comprehension and interaction with the environment.

This course is open to all graduate level students and to junior, senior/fifth year undergraduate students, with priority given to those in the NCSS and other Liberal Arts concentrations pending seat availability.

Elective

An introduction to the principles of architectural design beginning with a close examination of materials, forces and the human body. The examination will progressively widen in scope to include issues of form, space, structure, program and site. This condensed architectural studio is intended for freshmen and students outside the Division of Architecture and Design.

Elective

This course concludes the Graduate Thesis through iterative prototyping, application and verification that positions and delivers a human-centered, discipline-engaging proposal that will be communicated through an exhibition format, product, product prototype and a final Graduate Thesis document.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | MID Industrial Design

This course concludes the Graduate Thesis through iterative prototyping, application and verification that positions and delivers a human-centered, discipline-engaging proposal that will be communicated through an exhibition format, product, product prototype and a final Graduate Thesis document.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | MID Industrial Design

In many ways, biodesign introduces a fresh paradigm for our era. It’s design with/for biology! As such, biodesign promotes new forms of collaboration with living organisms, whether they are naturally evolved or lab-synthesized. Biodesign de-centers the dominant, yet limited, focus on humans that human-centered design championed at the turn of the century. It also eschews biomimicry, as it does not expect organisms to teach us or provide us with learning opportunities, nor serve us as merely models for emulation. Instead, its design tenets are biological principles that are observable in nature. Things grow and evolve, and are interdependent, so the products of biodesign are not thought of as ends in themselves. They’re part of a broader system or ecology that design aims to complement, or even enhance. As a result, biodesign projects are inherently complex, requiring multidisciplinary collaboration amongst specialists and generalists, including designers. This semester, we will explore biodesign across various scales, from molecules and materials to products and environments, while engaging with key pioneers in the field. No scientific background is required to succeed in this class.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

This sophomore studio expands basic principles of furniture design and material skills, exploring how the made objects interact with the human body. Intermediate skills will be demonstrated and practiced as students further explore materials and their applications in design.

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

Major Requirement | BFA Furniture Design

This sophomore studio expands basic principles of furniture design and material skills, exploring how the made objects interact with the human body. Intermediate skills will be demonstrated and practiced as students further explore materials and their applications in design.

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

Major Requirement | BFA Furniture Design

Human society evolves through our interactions with the natural environment. Many of the environmental challenges today derive from the industrialization and urbanization process around the globe in the past three millennia. Focusing on the region of East Asia, this course examines key environmental issues in both historical and contemporary contexts. We will start with discussing people's perception of nature in pre-industry East Asia and its relevance today. Then we will take a closer look at major disasters in recent history, such as draught, flood, earthquake, and plague, and examine how civil societies and state powers responded to those challenges. On infrastructure enthusiasm, we will study the proliferation of mega concrete dams and their environmental and human tolls. On industrial pollution and health, we will focus on the tragedies of mercury poisoning and black lung cancer. In the rapid urbanization process, how the changes of land use and our life style have reshaped our relations with the environment. In the battle with climate change and environmental injustice, how do we evaluate the role of bottom-up environmental activism and authoritarian environmentalism? Exploring those issues would help us contextualize the intimate connections between nature, culture, economy, and political powers in East Asia and thus deepen our understanding of this region's role in global sustainability. This course requires students to do weekly assigned readings, engaging in class discussions, writing short reflection essays, and doing a final research project.

Elective

In this course, we will create site-specific projections that breathe new life onto the built environment. Working in the lineage of street art and guerrilla performance, we will explore the relationship between art, public space and the communities we inhabit. How is projection a tool of public communication? How can light and movement reshape architecture and human behavior? We will research sites, understand their stories, develop creative interventions, build prototypes and work collaboratively to design ephemeral public installations.

Elective

This course examines the historical, social, and cultural interrelationships between cities, regions, and food systems.  How have urban regions produced, processed, and distributed food across space and time?  How have foodways influenced public and private life?  Major course topics will include the meanings of food in human societies; the role of science and technology in nutrition and diet; food security and sovereignty; sustainability and resilience in food systems; and community-based food planning and policy governance.

Elective

As a stimulus to the imagination, method of investigation, or as a basic means of communication, drawing is a fundamental process of human thought. This class will examine various kinds of drawings from the history of art and visual culture moving chronologically from the medieval to the post-modern. Our studies will have a hands-on approach, meeting behind the scenes in the collections of the RISD Museum. Working from objects directly will be supplemented by readings and writing assignments as well as active classroom discussion. This seminar is recommended for THAD concentrators and students especially interested in drawing.

Elective