RISD Courses by CfC

Our studio courses are offered in the context of our active research cores where complexity meets art and design. In this way, students can feed and be fed by insights from vibrant ongoing collaborations, while working alongside peers from different disciplines.

CfC courses at RISD encourage students to stretch their skills and creativity for application in non-traditional contexts. Many of our partners are unused to working with artists or designers, and the rich dialog between students and partners enriches both parties’ understanding of what design and art can be—and achieve. When we instill in students methods for thinking in systems and thinking with complexity, they develop new methods for applying their skills.

CfC is not a department, but a grant-funded research center. As we’ve experimented with the best way to make these exciting courses available, we’ve learned that we prefer to work with departments to offer seats as part of their advanced studio requirements, where students are assigned courses by lottery based on their preferences.

By partnering with RISD departments in this way, CfC courses provide a way for students to meet part of their degree requirements while enriching their experience with collaborative real-world partnerships. By providing seats and studio space, we can ease some of the burdens that departments face. We always hold seats in reserve for students from other departments who want to enroll.

These courses are tightly woven with our research cores. Studio courses offered in tandem with active research areas means that we can call upon partners to act as expert visitors and critics, offering students ‘hot off the press’ insights from people deeply engaged in the work. The students’ imaginative and experimental approaches in turn widens the possibility space for the kinds of conversations we can have with our partners. Imagination sparks imagination in a virtuous cycle of exchange.