Design 4650 / 5650 | Collaborative Studio | Spring 2025
Designing for Folks to Gather
This interdisciplinary collaborative studio invites students from industrial, interior, and visual communications design to creatively explore how design shapes inclusive, meaningful gatherings. Students engage in hands-on, person-centered projects—including interactive installations, a zine publication, and a public event—that develop practical skills and emphasize design’s potential to foster brave, inclusive community spaces.
This course also directly reflects my scholarly agenda by integrating design-based making (DBM) and person-centered design (PCD) frameworks, engaging students in research-informed pedagogical methods to critically examine and reimagine inclusive practices within social, cultural, and community contexts.
Assignment 01
Gathering Profile
Students individually research and present profiles of distinct gatherings aligned with dichotomous themes (e.g., personal/impersonal, epic/tiny). Through secondary research, visual storytelling, and short in-class presentations, students contextualize how gatherings embody course themes, exploring opportunities for design interventions and reflections on inclusive community building.
Students decided to build profiles using a shared layout so they could publish a card deck of designing for folks to gather!
Work credit for examples below: Abby Fricke, Emily Straughn, Luca Della Vella
Assignment 02
Gathering for X
Students collaboratively explore personal histories to design and facilitate a purposeful gathering, drawing inspiration from an Indigenous fire ceremony concept introduced in class. They produce experiential visualizations, design comprehensive event plans, and reflect on gatherings as rituals, emphasizing person-centered and interdisciplinary design methodologies integral to the course.
Work credit for examples below: Aya Rikabi, Francesca Knoetgen, Sydney Greenwell
Assignment 03
Gathering Around Ideas
Informed by contemporary writings on gatherings or ways of understanding people, students individually or collaboratively produce Zines—small publications printed using Risograph technology (thanks Jessie Horning!)—further informed by a visit to Ohio State Library's rare books & manuscripts collection of historic zines with librarian Jolie Braun and a presentation from Rebecca Richardson, founder of Zine Club Columbus. This project deepens students’ understanding of gathering as an asynchronous and even ideological activity, allowing them to creatively interpret theoretical perspectives and share practical insights within the broader design community.
Pictured below: zines produced by students and shared during an in-class zine swap
Assignment 04
Gathering for [TBD]
Students collectively conceptualize, manage, and facilitate a public event integrating principles of person-centered and interdisciplinary design. Through comprehensive event documentation, personal statements of intent, and peer assessments, students demonstrate proficiency in planning, teamwork, and execution, culminating in a public-facing experiential gathering that synthesizes course learnings.
Pictured below: photographs from the students' "Tea Party" event
