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

  • Different Starting Points, Same End Goal

    Higher education campuses can enhance student experience by implementing mobile credentials to streamline building access, on-campus payments, and access to other amenities. This enables students to connect to their campuses through the technology they use most: their mobile devices.

  • UNT Dallas Holds Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony for $100M STEM Building

    The University of North Texas at Dallas in Dallas, Texas, recently celebrated the opening of its new, $100-million STEM Building, according to local news. The ceremony on Dec. 2 preceded the first day of classes in the facility on Jan. 12, 2026.

  • classroom with crystal ball on top of a desk

    Call for Opinions: Spaces4Learning 2026 Predictions for Educational Facilities

    As 2025 winds to a close, the Spaces4Learning staff is asking its readers—school administrators, architects, engineers, facilities managers, builders, superintendents, designers, vendors, and more—to send us their predictions for educational facilities in 2026.

  • University of Kentucky Receives $150M Gift Toward New Arts District

    The University of Kentucky’s Board of Trustees recently received a $150-million gift from The Bill Gatton Foundation, according to a university news release, to build a new arts district on the campus in Lexington, Ky. The new district will feature a new College of Fine Arts building and a multi-hundred-seat theater, among other amenities.

Digital Edition