The graduate program in Designed Objects is offered through the Department of Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects.
The field of designed objects is broadly conceived to encourage exploratory study of the entire range of physical things that we use to facilitate and mediate our lives. Providing a creative and intellectual context in which the nature and potentiality of designed things can be closely examined and reimagined, designed objects is focused on the critical and experimental rethinking of the given norms of objects and products. Designed Objects explores in particular such issues as object/user/context relationships—in interaction design, embedded technologies, user-centered design, design for sustainability—as well as the conceptual challenges to product culture given by critical thinking, fine arts practice, history, and theory.
Teaching and advising in this area stress interdisciplinary explorations and innovations in terms of products [widely conceived] that support and enhance people's lives and endeavors and take a critical attitude to contemporary product culture.
The faculty teaching in this area of study traverse the field of experience in the designing, making, and critical analysis of designed objects. Students are able to draw on the knowledge and skills of faculty working in adjacent and complementary fields such as design for emerging technologies; architecture and interior architecture; visual communication design; art and technology studies; and hybrid sculptural practices and furniture design. Graduate-level seminars in design theory, history and criticism, design thinking, and advanced design research/writing support diverse studio work. The studio and seminar offerings of the graduate program at SAIC open students to other disciplines and modes of practice and intellectual inquiry. Specific design-focused seminars and studios and advising are offered in conjunction with other design graduate students in interior architecture, design for emerging technologies, and visual communication design.
Students in Designed Objects can access a wide range of fabrication technologies from across SAIC, including wood, metal, ceramics, electronics, and kinetics shops, as well as digital facilities with 3D modeling, image processing, design visualization, and media editing.
There are two options for graduate study in designed objects—an MFA in Designed Objects and a Master of Design in Designed Objects. The MFA is an individualized program in which graduate students with existing experience in the field of object design prioritize their pursuit of independent projects, and work with advisors one　-on-one each semester. The Master of Design in Designed Objects is a two-year, carefully sequenced, course-based curriculum for students who require immersion in the critical and technical skills specific to the practice of object design