Interdepartmental 316 - [Critical] Design Thinking Studio

This interdisciplinary project-based course emphasizes human-centered design process as well as critical social theory on the relationships between humans and designed things. Through hands-on, individual and collaborative making, students learn design-thinking skills such as user-experience research, rapid idea generation techniques, prototyping and iterative implementation. This learning happens alongside rich class discussions of both seminal and contemporary scholarly work on design’s role in shaping the lived experience. Perspectives include archaeology, critical psychology, civil engineering, postcolonial studies, cognitive science, sociology and art history. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission required.