Archinect - News

RISD students team up with AARP to demonstrate the potential of ADUs to lawmakers

2024-02-15T15:25:00-05:00

Students at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) recently collaborated with the state’s local AARP on a design-research project that was meant to demonstrate the potential of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) to lawmakers currently looking at alternatives to boost housing production and care for an aging population.

The project was spearheaded by RISD faculty member Elizabeth Debs as part of the Interior Architecture department’s annual design charette challenge this past November. She says: “We look for opportunities to use design as a way to explore pressing community needs with collaborators who are experts in their fields. By working with [the] AARP, students quickly learned important strategies for aging in place as well as universal design approaches they will use throughout their careers.”

Photo by Jaime Marland, image courtesy Rhode Island School of Design.

Teams were limited to a 900-square-foot footprint for their designs, which also included considerations for primary st...

Francis Kéré, Walter Hood, Do Ho Suh to receive honorary degrees at RISD Commencement

2023-04-14T09:00:00-04:00

This spring’s commencement ceremony at the Rhode Island School of Design will feature a pair of luminaries as last year’s Pritzker Prize winner Francis Kéré will join Walter Hood for the event, which is to be held at Amica Mutual Pavilion on June 3rd.

Both designers will receive honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degrees alongside artist and Class of 1994 graduate Do Ho Suh. Kéré will be the keynote speaker at the event. Hood, who is not slated to give an address, also spoke at the UC Berkeley CED commencement ceremony in 2020.

The school shares: “A series of exhibitions leading up to Commencement will highlight new work produced by graduating students. Showcasing the work of grad students across 20 disciplines, Grad Show 2023 will be on view at the Rhode Island Convention Center from May 25–June 3.”

Relate on Archinect: Rhode Island School of Design’s architecture faculty gives ‘unequivocal support’ to striking workers

The announcement coincides with an ongoing labor dispute at RISD, with...

Rhode Island School of Design’s architecture faculty gives ‘unequivocal support’ to striking workers

2023-04-13T09:56:00-04:00

The architecture faculty of the Rhode Island School of Design has expressed its “unequivocal support” for striking workers on the campus. The strike, now approaching two weeks in duration, is being carried out by 60 movers, custodians, and ground service staff, represented by the Teamsters union.

“We express our unequivocal support for the custodians, groundskeepers, and movers currently on strike for a fair, decent wage at RISD,” a statement by the architecture department reads. “As educators and practitioners, we are acutely aware that the maintenance of our physical spaces is vital to the everyday functioning of our institution and is also the physical manifestation of our collective value systems. We firmly believe that RISD must fairly compensate and support the people whose tireless labor makes our work fundamentally possible. Their labor must be valued, recognized, and celebrated.”

“When employers use standards of minimum rather than standards of care, today’s living wage ...

RISD announces withdrawl from U.S. News & World Report's Best College rankings

2023-02-15T15:40:00-05:00

The Rhode Island School of Design announced its decision to withdraw from the U.S. News & World Report's Best College rankings on February 13, a move that joins more institutions that are turning away from the highly-criticized process.

RISD President, Crystal Williams, explained that "principally, Rhode Island School of Design does not measure the value of our students or our academic programs based on the same factors used by U.S. News & World Report. Our educational model is predicated on three primary ways of learning: visual, material and intellectual."

Hyperallergic's Rhea Nayyar reported on the design school’s decision to abstain from the popular higher education guide, which has come under scrutiny over the last decade owing to claims of favoritism, the broader manipulation of young people along lines of prestige, and presumed career success after ...

Jason Young has been named the next dean of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville's College of Architecture and Design

2021-05-13T19:46:00-04:00

Jason Young, professor and director of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s School of Architecture, has been named the next dean of the College of Architecture and Design effective July 1. [...] Young will succeed Dean Scott Poole, who announced in 2020 that he would step down and return to the faculty, continuing a successful 35-year career of teaching, professional practice, service, and leadership, with many accomplishments and accolades along the way.

"Young will succeed Dean Scott Poole, who announced in 2020 that he would step down and return to the faculty, continuing a successful 35-year career of teaching, professional practice, service, and leadership, with many accomplishments and accolades along the way." — The University of Tennessee Knoxville

Young will oversee the college’s four schools: architecture, interior architecture, landscape architecture, and design. Before the University of Tennessee, Young taught architecture at the University of Michigan, the University of California, Berkeley as the 2013 Howard Friedman Visiting Associate Professor of Practice, the Summer Institute for Architecture at the Catholic University of America, and served as a visiting professor at the Schwerpunkt Holz in Murau, Austria.

Jason Young’s academic research explores contemporary conditions of American urbanism in a post-city, digitally organized culture. He has lectured on his research at institutions including, the Rhode Island Schoo...

RISD announces plans to focus on social equity and inclusion in art and design education

2020-07-23T14:56:00-04:00

As universities and colleges across the country have seen renewed calls for racial equity and social justice within their curricula, faculty, and programs, the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) has announced a series of initiatives as part of effort to focus the school's pedagogy on anti-racist topics.

A recent letter from RISD President Rosanne Somerson highlights a slate of changes that are coming to the school, including efforts to develop curricula that focuses on anti-racist agendas, engage with non-Eurocentric topics, expand faculty development around equity issues, and expand hiring of faculty members with "expertise in issues of race and decoloniality in the arts and design."

The school will also develop a new Office of Discrimination Reporting and Title IX, expand its existing Center for Social Equity and Inclusion, and expand mental health programs for BIPOC students.

The letter continues, "Evolving our college, museum and community is not just about eliminating racism; ...

Get Lectured: RISD, Spring '17

2017-03-21T13:34:00-04:00

Archinect's Architecture School Lecture Guide for Winter & Spring 2017

Archinect's Get Lectured is back in session for Spring 2017. Get Lectured is an ongoing series where we feature a school's lecture series—and their snazzy posters—for the current term. Check back frequently to keep track of any upcoming lectures you don't want to miss. Mark those calendars!

Want to share your school's lecture series? Send us your school's lecture series poster and details to connect@archinect.com.

Check out the Spring '17 lecture series at the Rhode Island School of Design, Department of Architecture.

Feb 23, 6:30 PM
Brett Schneider / Guy Nordenson and Associates & RISD Architecture

Feb 27, 6:30 PM
Jeanette Kuo / Karamuk*Kuo

Mar 2, 6:30 PM at RISD Auditorium
Petra Blaisse / Inside Outside, Hosted with INTAR, Textiles, RISD Museum

Mar 13, 6:30 PM
Allan Wexler / Allan Wexler Studio, Hosted with ID

Mar 16, 6:30 PM
Jarrett Walker / Jarrett Walker + Associates

April 3, 6:30 PM
Kunle Adeyemi / NLÉ

April 24, ...

Re-use, Re-Design & Re-think: RISD’s Interior Architecture department

2016-12-28T17:11:00-05:00

This post is brought to you by Department of Interior Architecture RISD

At the intersection of architecture, conservation and design, RISD’s Interior Architecture department takes an innovative approach to the reuse and transformation of existing buildings. Advanced design studios focused on adaptive reuse are central to both the undergraduate and graduate programs. And unlike the fields of interior design and decoration, interior architecture looks less at the application of surface materials than at understanding the design of buildings from the inside out.

In the studio, students use digital and manual means to research and recommend design alterations and renovations that give existing buildings new life. Studios focus on a wide range of approaches, from domestic to retail design to theater/production design to issues of preservation and conservation.

“Students in our department are engaged in a rich and expansive discipline focusing on the reuse and transformation of existing ...