IMX 216 Design Research Practices (4 Credits)

Design research is a wide-ranging field, spanning from researching to inform the design of products and services to designing everyday objects for the purpose of investigation. It connects cross-disciplinary ideas to material interventions. This course explores three modes: 1) exploratory: researching people’s needs to frame a design project; 2) iterative: modeling ideas to evaluate and build on them; and 3) speculative: creating probes to question social systems. Working in groups, students use each mode in an ongoing collaborative design project. The course involves readings and discussion to spark critical thinking while experimenting with methods. Enrollment limited to 16. (E) {A}

Spring, Variable

IMX 316 Interdisciplinary Making Concentration Capstone (4 Credits)

This interdisciplinary project-based Capstone course for the Interdisciplinary Making Concentration emphasizes the design process as well as critical social theory on the relationships between humans, designed things and the environment. Through hands-on, individual or collaborative making, students learn how to bring an idea from the concept phase to a final project through research, idea generation, prototyping, iterative improvement and end-of-life planning. This learning happens alongside rich class discussions of seminal and contemporary scholarly work on design’s role in shaping the world. Perspectives include philosophy, anthropology, critical psychology, sociology, cognitive science, history, archeology, theater, studio arts, dance, material science, geometry, physics and feminist theory. Prerequisite: IDP 111. Interdisciplinary Making Concentrators only. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission required.

Fall, Spring, Variable