Casey C. Lurie

Within a structured studio environment, advanced-level students develop, refine, and execute an individual furniture concept. Students progress from the conceptual design stage, through design development to the actualization of a work that can be tested for public review. Students are challenged to develop concise and persuasive arguments regarding the motivation, development, execution, and dissemination of their design project. Through the articulation and advocacy of their design work, students define their role as a dynamic catalyst operating within real-world social-, political-, monetary-, and cultural-economies. This is an advanced level studio course and as such will remain very open, each student taking the lead in the formulation of an appropriate strategy for realizing their own work. The instructor will work closely with each student on a one-on-one basis to help them identify and learn the design and making techniques required for their project. Our approach relies heavily on development through the immediacy of sketching, hands-on iteration, experimentation, and trial and error. This course traces the development of a single piece of furniture through the following steps, each an integral part of the process: ideation, drawing, model-making, prototyping, and final fabrication.

Within a structured studio environment, advanced-level students develop, refine, and execute an individual furniture concept. Students progress from the conceptual design stage, through design development to the actualization of a work that can be `tested? for public review. Students are challenged to develop concise and persuasive arguments regarding the motivation, development, execution, and dissemination of their design project. Through the articulation and advocacy of their design work, students define their role as a dynamic catalyst operating within real-world social-, political-, monetary-, and cultural-economies. Students are admitted via a portfolio application reviewed by the faculty.

The production and consumption of material and, some would argue immaterial objects, is at the heart of cultural formation. The course interrogates issues in relation to the everyday and designed objects through our understanding of design and its objects, their significance in daily life and the cultures of production, mediation and interaction. The course also examines the dilemma we face in contemporary practice in labeling objects as craft, art or design. At least one graduate-level Design History course is recommended before enrollment in this course.