This course examines Chinese Ming dynasty furniture as a system of material intelligence that challenges dominant Western industrial design paradigms. Through the study of Chinese woodworking traditions, students engage with alternative ways of making, learning, and knowing—rooted in handcraft, material sensitivity, and structural logic. Using primarily hand tools, the studio emphasizes making and drawing as methods to understand joinery and structure as generative design frameworks.

In contrast to dominant narratives of design innovation, Chinese furniture demonstrates a continuity of form across time, where transformation occurs through subtle variations, adaptations, and cultural layering rather than radical formal reinvention. This course frames such continuity as a critical alternative to prevailing notions of progress and authorship.

Students will also investigate questions of knowledge production, cultural visibility, and the conditions under which certain design histories become legible or overlooked.

Hands-on making is approached as an embodied method of inquiry rather than technical mastery. Students will produce a series of studies, including joinery prototypes, material investigations, and analytical drawings, leading to the final project. Outcomes may take the form of furniture or spatial/system-based proposals that reinterpret these principles in a contemporary context, articulating a clear design position grounded in structure, material logic, and cultural understanding.

This studio is a Reassembling Industrial Design (REID) Special Topic Studio, which meets the graduation requirement for an SEI tagged class.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

This class explores form and space through the addition of dynamic light, with particular emphasis on the importance and weight that it holds within a photographic image. Students will investigate and answer the essential question: how does light serve an image? The course encourages critical examination of how artificial light is employed in fine art, documentary, commercial, and advertising photography to emphasize concepts, emotions or illustrate objects and space, placing a strong focus on contemporary works. Throughout the semester, students will gain the necessary skills to work in a professional photography studio, helping them build a strong foundation for greater control of their own projects. Additionally, the class covers the practical skills required for professional roles related to commercial photography, such as lighting technician, digital technician, art director, creative director, and studio management.

Active participation in live demonstrations, both in studio and on location will give students crucial hands-on experience. Starting with the basics, students will learn fundamental principles of light and grow confident in handling all types. Whether hard, soft, painterly, illustrative, high-key, low-key, gelled, natural, flash, and continuous, eliminate any fear of working with light when photographing people places or objects. By the end of the class, students will feel empowered and ready to keep learning about light, gaining a new confidence in approaching lighting challenges throughout their creative journey. 

Elective

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.

Designing for the physical, emotional and psychological needs of astronauts may seem like an esoteric challenge but 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.

Extreme environments create extraordinary challenges to human physiological and psychological existence where common expectations for safety, comfort and performance need to be radically redefined. 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.

NASA’s Artemis campaign will launch its’ third mission this year. The Artemis III mission will send humans to land on the Moon, to 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.

This studio is funded by a grant from the RI Space Grant Consortium, so there are no lab fees and minimal out of pocket expenses. The grant will cover these costs.

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

This course will focus on the graduate level inquiry of wood-based construction designs and commensurate skills. Lighting and upholstery techniques, as well as outside vendor protocols, may also be employed pursuant to the graduate student's design needs. Graduate students will develop a multi-lateral skill set applicable to their area of study. Thesis concepts are often explored within this class. Students concentrate, in sequence, six weeks of Studio Based Learning of techniques and skills followed by six weeks of dedicated, full scale, designed and executed piece. Located in the Center for Integrated Technologies, CIT Bldg, the Graduate Studies Wood Studio will focus on contemporary and traditional: joinery, shaping, and vacuum lamination construction techniques. In addition, metal (cold working) techniques and manipulation are also covered. Surface treatments and finishing methods for metal and wood will be covered throughout this class.

Elective

The purpose of S301 is for students to engage in scholarly exploration of topics that are of interest to them (including topics that directly impact their studio practice). Students will be guided by the particular expertise of their faculty, and the epistemological frameworks of a given HPSS discipline or interdisciplinary area, to build a liberal arts-based practice that deepens and expands understanding of their area of focus. Placement in the junior year is scaffolded to allow students to have had the time to take several liberal arts electives and be far enough along in their major to start to develop specific interests and questions that could benefit from deeper exploration and integration across bodies of knowledge. The project-based focus of the course should allow students to start to gain background understanding of a topic of interest that may serve them as they enter their final year of study at RISD, including optionally a reflection about the relevance of the project to their studio work.

Major Requirement | BFA, BArch

The purpose of S301 is for students to engage in scholarly exploration of topics that are of interest to them (including topics that directly impact their studio practice). Students will be guided by the particular expertise of their faculty, and the epistemological frameworks of a given HPSS discipline or interdisciplinary area, to build a liberal arts-based practice that deepens and expands understanding of their area of focus. Placement in the junior year is scaffolded to allow students to have had the time to take several liberal arts electives and be far enough along in their major to start to develop specific interests and questions that could benefit from deeper exploration and integration across bodies of knowledge. The project-based focus of the course should allow students to start to gain background understanding of a topic of interest that may serve them as they enter their final year of study at RISD, including optionally a reflection about the relevance of the project to their studio work.

Major Requirement | BFA, BArch

The purpose of S301 is for students to engage in scholarly exploration of topics that are of interest to them (including topics that directly impact their studio practice). Students will be guided by the particular expertise of their faculty, and the epistemological frameworks of a given HPSS discipline or interdisciplinary area, to build a liberal arts-based practice that deepens and expands understanding of their area of focus. Placement in the junior year is scaffolded to allow students to have had the time to take several liberal arts electives and be far enough along in their major to start to develop specific interests and questions that could benefit from deeper exploration and integration across bodies of knowledge. The project-based focus of the course should allow students to start to gain background understanding of a topic of interest that may serve them as they enter their final year of study at RISD, including optionally a reflection about the relevance of the project to their studio work.

Major Requirement | BFA, BArch

Entrepreneurship is an interdisciplinary advanced studio combining studio work in product design with lectures and significant project work in entrepreneurship. Combining design skills and entrepreneurial action, students will create products and test their market viability. Students will learn how to bring, and perhaps will bring, new product concepts to the market; learn how to investigate both user needs and market opportunities; understand manufacturability and costs; and create strategies for building sustainable value propositions and market positions.

Through this course, students will design and prototype a product family and create and present a viable, professional business plan. In order for students to achieve these end goals, they must come ready to develop tangible, manufacturable products and have access to a customer base so that iterative user testing is possible.

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

This course focuses on illustrated narratives. To do this, we will start the semester by looking at why stories exist and how they function. We’ll study how written language forms images in our minds and explore how illustrations interact with this process. Alongside this, we’ll look at examples of illustrated narratives—children’s books, art books, graphic novels, short stories, poetry, and novels—supported by theoretical readings and cultural context. The hope is that you’ll find new ways of thinking and writing about your work and the work of others. The aim is also to help bridge the semester’s writing workshop with your studio course, and to support your efforts to use your written stories in your studio. Assignments will involve weekly reading responses, creative exercises, presentations, and a final portfolio.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $260.00

Major Requirement | MFA Illustration

Sculpture Seminar II: Visual and Critical Literacies is the third sequential course in the Sculpture curriculum centered on research and coordinated with the content of the major studio courses. These research courses are designed to excite student learning through the practice of critical and engaged pedagogy in art history, material histories, research methods, representation, and what “counts” as artist research. Course content has been selected precisely to support the understanding of how critical literacy impacts a creative practice. De-material practices like reading, thinking, moving, and speaking can merge with, bend around, and twist through material practices.

Sculpture Seminar II: Visual and Critical Literacies is an intermediary level course which follows Junior Research Studio where students have learned about field research and the local manifestations of larger systems. The design of this seminar is to facilitate and support the study of themes relevant to art practices and conversations today. Through a series of readings, films, classroom discussion, group, and independent work, students learn to contextualize myriad discourses using the frames of art history, critical theory, philosophy, ethics, and politics. In this studio-centered seminar, students will develop critical literacy that is applicable to their working practices and the attendant process of using materials to make meaning. This course supports discourse around the formation of the artist in an effort to figure out meaningful strategies for the development and maintenance of sustainable artistic and intellectual practices.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. This course is a requirement for Junior Sculpture Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Sculpture

Sculpture Seminar II: Visual and Critical Literacies is the third sequential course in the Sculpture curriculum centered on research and coordinated with the content of the major studio courses. These research courses are designed to excite student learning through the practice of critical and engaged pedagogy in art history, material histories, research methods, representation, and what “counts” as artist research. Course content has been selected precisely to support the understanding of how critical literacy impacts a creative practice. De-material practices like reading, thinking, moving, and speaking can merge with, bend around, and twist through material practices.

Sculpture Seminar II: Visual and Critical Literacies is an intermediary level course which follows Junior Research Studio where students have learned about field research and the local manifestations of larger systems. The design of this seminar is to facilitate and support the study of themes relevant to art practices and conversations today. Through a series of readings, films, classroom discussion, group, and independent work, students learn to contextualize myriad discourses using the frames of art history, critical theory, philosophy, ethics, and politics. In this studio-centered seminar, students will develop critical literacy that is applicable to their working practices and the attendant process of using materials to make meaning. This course supports discourse around the formation of the artist in an effort to figure out meaningful strategies for the development and maintenance of sustainable artistic and intellectual practices.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. This course is a requirement for Junior Sculpture Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Sculpture

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 will explore the technical and conceptual fundamentals of computer programming in the broader context of a sustained studio practice. In addition to teaching basic software coding skills from the ground up, the course will focus on the social and historical backgrounds of these technologies and how they shape the growth of media, identity, politics and the everyday. Related works from the contemporary art and design fields will be examined, ranging from visual, performance and sound art to architecture, product design and beyond. Students will be expected to engage with computer coding and related technologies conceptually or technically in their studio work. The course will consist of introductory exercises in computer programming, discussions of articles related to contemporary digital media, frequent critiques, and an intensive final project that pushes the boundaries of computer coding as a creative tool. Mistakes, pitfalls and frustrations will be expected and encouraged as students navigate this quickly changing medium. No prior programming experience is necessary. Open to non-majors pending seat availability and permission of the department.

Elective

Graduate Thesis Communications II is a studio course run in parallel with our sibling studio course which focuses on completing your thesis. Together, we will spend the spring semester finishing the thesis and thesis book that you proposed at the end of Graduate Thesis Communications I. We continue to think about writing as a design tool and as a communication tool. For this course, we put more emphasis on the communication aspect. Together, we will continue to refine and strengthen the manner by which you explain your thesis to yourself and others. We will think about audience, voice, structure, and form. We will explore different ways of communicating the same idea in different contexts and mediums (visual, oral, written). We will examine how to share our work and with whom. At the end of the course, you will have a complete thesis.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | MID Industrial Design

Graduate Thesis Communications II is a studio course run in parallel with our sibling studio course which focuses on completing your thesis. Together, we will spend the spring semester finishing the thesis and thesis book that you proposed at the end of Graduate Thesis Communications I. We continue to think about writing as a design tool and as a communication tool. For this course, we put more emphasis on the communication aspect. Together, we will continue to refine and strengthen the manner by which you explain your thesis to yourself and others. We will think about audience, voice, structure, and form. We will explore different ways of communicating the same idea in different contexts and mediums (visual, oral, written). We will examine how to share our work and with whom. At the end of the course, you will have a complete thesis.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | MID Industrial Design

The work intensive studio course will involved students in an intense visual, aesthetic and theoretical discussion around the historical relationship of Cinema to Painting and Arts Culture in general and move on to the analyze the current embodiment of Cinema's more conflated and confounded, co-dependant relationship to the Art's of today, tapping into the cross-pollination resulting of imagery, politics and theory's as they apply. Each class meeting will involve studio work and discussion and culminate with a film screening. The film screenings will move forward from Cinema's very beginnings to a few of today's best Indie films. The concentration of the course will be assigned painting projects that will be direct responses to the films being screened and related critiques of these projects as they pertain to the films and the applicable supplemental literature, allowing the discussion around Cinema, cinematic and art critical theory and the Art culture to be transferred to the students individual works thus allowing for the work to be seen in a larger context.

Elective

Introduction to means of representation of ideas for Interior Architecture through various types of drawings: orthographics, axonometrics, perspectives, freehand sketching and mixed media. Work will be done on site from existing structures as well as in the studio concentrating on concept development through drawing.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies

Introduction to means of representation of ideas for Interior Architecture through various types of drawings: orthographics, axonometrics, perspectives, freehand sketching and mixed media. Work will be done on site from existing structures as well as in the studio concentrating on concept development through drawing.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies

In this product design studio, we will dissect an existing product, analyze a market segment, and redesign the product to fit the described market. The methodology used to complete this task will be accelerated, giving students an overview of a typical industrial design process. Students will be exposed to design drawing techniques, foam modeling methods, and the concept of designing for consumers.

Elective

In this product design studio, we will dissect an existing product, analyze a market segment, and redesign the product to fit the described market. The methodology used to complete this task will be accelerated, giving students an overview of a typical industrial design process. Students will be exposed to design drawing techniques, foam modeling methods, and the concept of designing for consumers.

Elective