Furniture Design
Furniture Design at RISD offers an intensive immersion in materials research and exploration in the process of making furniture and objects. In this major you investigate some of the most important questions facing designers today—from how to take advantage of changing technologies and new materials, to how to respond to variable economic conditions and evolving lifestyles.
In the studio
The Furniture Design major encourages you to experiment with a wide range of materials and approaches, while focusing on human factors and sustainable, responsible design.
Exhibitions and events
A selection of works from our BFA and MFA programs that examines the role of furniture in contemporary life and the values that shape its creation.
Remixing stylistic traditions and historical ornament and embracing the fantastical, this exhibition explores dimensionality—in virtual and physical realms—with natural and synthetic materials, and through both traditional and exploratory functional objects.
A cross-disciplinary exhibition featuring work by students in seven disciplines—Ceramics, Furniture Design, Glass, Graphic Design, Industrial Design, Interior Architecture, and Textiles.
Ideals of luxury are geographically, historically, and materially specific, and inextricably linked to larger social and economic structures. Material Opulence offers a vibrant and inclusive reimagination of grandeur through a collection of functional chairs and domestic objects.
Unbounded by any preexisting definitions or illusions of domestic bliss, Rewilded Domesticity represents a collection of objects that express a collective yearning for connection through bold, organic materiality, honest structure, and the inherited wisdom of found artifacts.
About RISD FD
Students in RISD’s Furniture Design department embark on a course of study encompassing theory, skills, context, research, and professional practices. Drawing from a rich tradition, they are encouraged to experiment and work with a wide range of emerging materials and technologies, developing individual voices through the process of making. The program emphasizes the principles and practice of furniture design as well as the social value of art, design, and responsible citizenship.
News
Longtime RISD faculty member Chris Specce 01 ID was recently named Schiller Family Endowed Chair in Furniture Design. The endowment, created in 2016 thanks to a generous donation from former RISD Trustee Kim Gassett-Schiller and Phil Schiller, supports Specce’s research and creative practice and also benefits the department as a whole.
Russ Fogle MFA 27 FD was the student recipient of the third-annual award, which recognizes original and innovative works in design, with sustainability, original thought, and proficient execution among jury criteria.
A graduate-level course taught by Jonah Takagi 02 FD used Providence’s Lippitt House Museum as a lens for understanding how furniture and interiors reflect the social, cultural, and technological forces of the late 19th century.
Faculty member Aspen Golann received a 2026 Creative Capital Award, which supports the creation of risk-taking, groundbreaking new works.
Furniture maker and faculty member Joyce Lin secured $25,000 to advance her practice.
Jay Osgerby, cofounder of Barber Osgerby, joined faculty for a conversation about design and the importance of cross-disciplinarity. Critic Amy Devers also interviewed Osgerby on her Clever Podcast.
View images from Furniture Department Triennial ‘25.
From the Furniture Design department’s Grounding Space exhibition at WANTED, to participation in NYCxDESIGN events across the city, RISD work stood out at this year’s exposition.
World of Interiors reviewed Material Opulence, a collection of chairs and domestic objects presented at the 2024 International Contemporary Furniture Fair.
Alumni
Furniture Design graduates go on to become thinker/makers who follow a variety of paths, from launching their own businesses making furniture and/or other objects to working as commercial product designers, teaching, running galleries and more.
David Wiseman BFA 03
David Wiseman produces sculpture, furniture, lighting, and site-specific installations that bring his awe for nature to our built environments. From his Los Angeles studio, Wiseman presides over every aspect of his meticulously crafted works, imbuing each piece with a reverence for the subject and the media, and as a result elevating the wondrous phenomena of our natural world.
Working across the ancient mediums of bronze, porcelain, plaster, enamel, and glass, he also draws inspiration from his study of global decorative arts traditions and a reverence for timelesscraft techniques, while maintaining a distinctly contemporary sensibility for pattern and form. The result is work that breathes new life into interiors and environments through delightful, handcrafted interventions: from porcelain cherry blossom ceilings floating above bronze patterned filigree folding screens, to terrazzo inlay furniture and illuminated branch and bud Chandeliers.
Wiseman has made site-specific installations for public institutions, international brands, andprivate collections. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Corning Museum of Glass, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Rhode Island School of Design Museum. His recent monograph, The Four Seasons of Flower Fruit Mountain, was published by August Editions in 2024.
Photograph by Mark Hanauer. Courtesy of Wiseman Studio.
Katie Stout BFA 12
Katie Stout lives and works in Hudson, NY and creates sculptural works that merge furniture, craft, and feminist critique into a playful and provocative visual language. Working across ceramic, textile, glass, and bronze, she reinterprets historical decorative forms through techniques such as hand-building, weaving, and casting. Her work explores domestic aesthetics with irreverence and humor, often blurring the line between art and function while challenging traditional ideas of beauty, gender, and taste.
RBW (Design studio) BFA 06
Founded in 2007 by Theo Richardson, Charles Brill, and Alex Williams — three RISD graduates who repurposed their own last names to launch Rich Brilliant Willing — RBW has spent nearly two decades building one of the most distinctive independent design brands in North America.
Now led by Richardson and Brill from the company's 100,000 sq ft headquarters in Kingston, New York, RBW designs and manufactures LED luminaires for architecture, hospitality, and residential projects worldwide, with installations spanning from Noma Copenhagen to Fortune 500 offices across the United States. A certified B Corporation with a 50+ person team, the studio opened its flagship showroom at 85 Franklin Street in Tribeca in 2025 — a three-story space that redefines how lighting is experienced.
Early recognition including the ICFF Best New Designer Award, Forbes 30 Under 30, and numerous Cooper Hewitt National Design Award nominations and have given way to a mature practice rooted in material exploration, modularity, and the belief that light shapes wellbeing.
Tanya Aguiñiga MFA 05
Tanya Aguiñiga was born in San Diego, California, raised in Tijuana, Mexico, and lives in Los Angeles. An artist, designer, and craftsperson working with traditional craft materials, she collaborates frequently with other artists and activists to create sculptures, installations, performances, and community-based art projects. Drawing upon her upbringing as a binational citizen who daily crossed the border from Tijuana to San Diego for school, Aguiñiga’s practice speaks to her divided identity, embedding and uplifting the larger and often invisible stories of the transnational community.