Introduces fundamental design principles as a way to demystify design and provide a basic introduction to all aspects of the process. Stimulates creativity, abstract thinking, representation, iteration, and design development. Equips students with skills to have more effective communication with designers, and develops their ability to apply the foundations of design to any discipline.

This studio builds on the fall ‘25 urban design joint studio with partner South Bronx Unite and the Mott Haven/Port Morris Community Land Stewards. Responding to the desire within the community to advance bold and actionable solutions for change, at a pivotal time for New York City and for the neighborhood, we will work together with our clients, their constituents and our class partners and collaborators, on actionable designs and recommendations. South Bronx Unite seeks to expand the local land trust to promote community-based and community-owned infrastructure for energy, resilience and good jobs. This workshop is part of a multi-year, multi-partner collaboration launched through LCAU’s Energy Intersections initiative.

Undergraduates welcome.

H1 Half Term subject

How can you build a creative practice that is adaptive, impactful, and future-ready?

This lecture-and-lab course equips students in design, arts, and cultural fields with tools and strategies for viable professional practice. You will engage with cultural economics and management, international frameworks, and practical tools such as business models, market positioning, branding, and intellectual property protection, applying them to your own work through structured exercises. Labs explore crossovers—ways creative practice can generate value and drive innovation in society and industry—developing experimental propositions for real-world applications.

You may enter with a professional direction in mind, although it is not required. The labs are designed to allow new directions and value propositions to emerge. The course fosters reflection and equips students to create professional offerings through a value-based understanding of cultural and creative production while identifying market opportunities with positive human impact. Final presentations consolidate learning into professional outputs with potential for incubation.

How do you go from a moment of obligation to starting or accelerating a movement?

This course explores the difference between innovation, social innovation, and systems change for social impact. Students interested in navigating complex environmental and social problems will explore frameworks and case studies from real systems change innovators to develop a more comprehensive view of complex problems and the systems they are part of —systems that often keep those problems in place.

In the course, you will apply experiential tools and methods to interrogate your own call to action, strengths, and gaps to address complex problems or needs. You will gain an understanding of the importance of understanding problems from the impact target’s perspective and explore innovative ways to create a scalable movement that ultimately can change a system. The final deliverable from the course is writing a case study on system change based on detailed actor mapping and interviews where you share your deeper understanding of a system you care about.

Also open to undergraduates.

This course is the first of a series of workshops looking into material practices that see architecture as an assemblage of parts to sponsor life’s activities. While this course will focus heavily on diy material cultures, our subjects of study will range from the living structures of Ken Isaacs to the ready to assemble online warehouse kits to the itinerant designs of Sam Chermayeff to community-based barn raising to temporary vendor kiosks and many other parts-based and nomadic architectural references. We will study each of their technical particularities, through the tools and documents that aid these building cultures: manuals, catalogs, inventories and drop down menus, while also interrogating the larger themes they bring to focus: products, collectivity, material circulation, temporality and activity.

In this first edition, the course will specifically focus on architectural assemblages that sponsor cultural production and enjoyment. We will be looking at pop up raves, outdoor movie rigs, festival rental gear, speaker systems and performance infrastructures.

We will be hearing from our friends at QNCC (Queer Nightlife Community Center) in Brooklyn and we will go on a daytrip to visit the Sonic Warehouse at Dartmouth College where we will attend a small digital sound production workshop.