Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

Parsons School of Design: The New School's Making Center

  • 06/01/17
Parsons School of Design 

BOTTOM LEFT AND BOTTOM MIDDLE PHOTOS © MARTIN SECK, PHOTOS © MICHAEL MORAN

The Making Center at Parsons School of Design — a 28,000-square-foot facility located in the heart of The New School’s Greenwich Village campus — is a space where students can explore innovative manufacturing methods, collaborate with their peers across a range of disciplines and employ state-of-the-art tools to address pressing social needs related to sustainability, human well-being and reviving urban making.

Open to all university students and faculty members regardless of their field of study, the Making Center is a place where everyone — from designers, technologists and activists, to managers, policy analysts and entrepreneurs — can work together in flexible, ad hoc teams to design innovative projects, methods and supply chains.

“This new space allows education and practice to shift from 20th-century siloed industrial model, which separates disciplines and thus limits interaction and collaboration, to a cross-platform model, which allows different designers to work together and learn from one another to design the future,” says Joel Towers, executive dean of Parsons School of Design.

The Making Center is a striking example of how art and design schools are using the built environment to shape the way students learn and interact. Designed by New York City-based Rice+Lipka Architects (R+L), the space features an open floor plan, including modular walls and tables that encourage students and faculty members to work with and learn from each other. More than half of the 14,000-square-foot main level is “dedicated to not being dedicated,” according to Lyn Rice of Rice+Lipka Architects.

“R+L conceived of the Center as a desiloed making place where design students from Parsons’ broad range of creative disciplines can work side-by-side,” Rice adds.

Underscoring Parsons’ commitment to making as a way of problem solving, students use the Parsons Making Center to design products and strategies that address pressing social needs.

This article originally appeared in the issue of .

Featured

  • Hawaii Elementary School Breaks Ground on New Classroom Building

    Kealakehe Elementary School in Kailua, Hawaii, recently began construction on a new, $16-million classroom building for its campus, according to a news release. The 13,000-square-foot building will stand two stories and connect the existing upper and lower campuses.

  • Countway Library at Harvard Medical School

    From Shadows to Sanctuary: The Transformation of Light at Countway Library

    The renovation of Countway Library at Harvard Medical School demonstrates how biophilic design and advanced lighting strategies transformed a formerly dark, insular space into a vibrant, welcoming hub that supports wellness, learning, and community engagement.

  • Round Rock ISD Completes New Early College High School

    Round Rock ISD near Austin, Texas, recently announced that construction is complete on a new, 46,500-square-foot campus for Early College High School, according to a news release. The new facility will allow the school’s students and staff to move from portables into a permanent building and increase its enrollment to 500.

  • North Texas School District Completes Third New Elementary School

    The Denton Independent School District in Dallas, Texas, recently finished construction on its third prototype design elementary school, Reeves Elementary, according to a news release.