Dezeen School Shows: a digital experience that allows users to explore historic architecture and a project that aims to restore connections lost due to Covid-19 in Dezeen’s latest Pratt Institute of Design school show.
Also included is a project that questions how space can nourish the human body and mind, and a nursery that aims to foster empathy between neurotypical and autistic children.
Institution: Pratt Institute for Design
School: School of Design
Course: interior design
Tutors: David Foley, Tania Branquinho, Irina Schneid, John Nafziger, Claudia Hernandez, Alex Schweder, Nina Freedman, Karin Tehve, Alison Snyder, Melissa Cicetti and Edwin Zawadzki
school statement:
“The Interior Design program at Pratt Institute prepares students to engage critically with issues through theoretical and applied research, and establishes them as innovators and leaders in the field of interior design.
“The curriculum addresses new and innovative technologies and sustainable practices, interdisciplinary collaboration, sustainable practices and issues of ethical and social responsibility in a diverse and global context.
“By enabling design as a vehicle for change, interior design at Pratt expands the potential of professional practice, design education and our understanding of the built environment.”
Interplay of Chen Zhong
“Located in the heart of the Union Square Park neighborhood, this work reimagines the interior as an incubator for spontaneous encounters and the unexpected interplay between strangers, seeking to restore human connections lost through quarantine and Covid-19.
“Physical interactions are complemented by digital play, inspiring community engagement, sensory experiences and modular transformation.”
University student: Chen Zhong
Course: MFA interior design
Tutor: Irina Schneider
E-mail: czhong[at]pratt.edu
Returning Lost Land in a Retreating Landscape by Tiffany Paler
“Bridging the vulnerabilities of time, space and people, this project focuses on the restoration of the Montaukett Tribe at Montauk Point.
“Documenting the transformative process of erosion, it examines how architectural ruins can activate a site of remembrance of what is lost and what remains.”
University student: Tiffany Paler
Course: BFA interior design
Tutor: Johann Nafziger
E-mail: brighter[at]pratt.edu
Queer Threads by Omar Aqeel
“This dissertation project aims to develop a queer spatial strategy in which design can be used to deconstruct preconceived binary constraints of the indoor environment, with a particular focus on how interstitial conditions can mediate awareness, connection, and intimacy between users.
“In a world of forgotten pasts and vanishing physical spaces, this thesis project strives to create a space that facilitates celebration, engagement and recovery by developing an adaptive inner language that offers accessibility and connection within all the diverse networks of queer identity.”
University student: Omar Aqel
Course: MFA interior design
Tutor: Claudia Hernandez
E-mail: Acorn[at]pratt.edu
Part of something by Alessandra Lucia Clemente Pilade
“A Part of Something explores the possibility of equality between the built environment and the occupants through participatory design.
“By reimagining people on the verge of exiting the New York care system as makers of their home space, this thesis proposes their agency in ways that rework physical systems of power.”
University student: Alessandra Lucia Clemente Pilade
Course: BFA interior design
Tutor: Alexander Schweder
E-mail: acleme24[at]pratt.edu
A cultural urban instrument created by Kavya Garg
“This thesis examines the intervention of performative scapes in historical settings.
“It aims to initiate a poetic dialogue between the old-new and the local and global, imagining, transforming and recultivating sites of cultural significance.”
University student: Kavya Garg
Course: MFA interior design
Tutor: Nina Freimann
E-mail: kgarg290[at]pratt.edu
Mix Reality Inhabitation by Elodia Wei
“This project proposes a duality of spatial experience to stimulate exploration of historical architecture and artifacts.
“Paradoxically, to preserve the vernacular architecture facing demolition, its physical presence is being augmented by virtual digital technologies such as augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality.”
University student: Elodia Wei
Course: BFA interior design
Tutor: Karen Teve
E-mail: two5[at]pratt.edu
Heterotopian Theater by Haochen Xuan
“An insight into the differential space envisioned by Michel Foucault and a follow-up to David Wiles’ theory of performance as a reorganization of social identity, Heterotopic Theater implants the concept of performance in New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal as a series of intermingled pursuits for one ideal territorial citizenship.”
University student: Haochen Xuan
Course: MFA interior design
Tutor: Alison Snyder
E-mail: hxuan2[at]pratt.edu
Cycle Living & Farming by Clara Zlotkin
“Cycle Living & Farming questions how a space can stimulate and nourish the human body and mind towards a simpler lifestyle for a sustainable future.
“This project will give a roof to people between the ages of 18 and 30 who are struggling to find their place in society due to socio-economic barriers.
“It will also serve as a learning environment for life skills and important values for a sustainable future. Here they can learn how to grow vegetables for better health outcomes and use their hands to make everyday objects from biodegradable materials.”
University student: Clara Zlotkin
Course: BFA interior design
Tutor: Melissa Cicetti
E-mail: czlotkin[at]pratt.edu
To learn [Space] by Wen Ching Ting
“This project redefines an educational space to foster empathy in an integrated kindergarten with neurotypical children and children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
“It does this by implementing interior space adaptation strategies to provoke physical and cognitive spatial perspective training to trigger better emotional understanding.”
University student: Wen Ching Ting
Course: MFA interior design
Tutor: Edwin Zawadzki
E-mail: wting4[at]pratt.edu
Various projects:
Clockwise from top left:
Seeing and being in space by Xiaohan Zhou (BFA Interior Design)
Growing Potential by Erica Naimah Yasmin Matin (BFA Interior Design)
The VR+ by YueZhu Han (MFA Interior Design)
Cultural Mosaic: Building Connections Between Cultures by Ga Young Park (MFA Interior Design)
Productive Collisions: A Mixed-Use Building For The Community by Iris Lee (BFA Interior Design)
Surrealistic Collisions by Kaelee Helms (MFA Interior Design)
content of the partnership
This school show is a partnership between Dezeen and the Pratt Institute of Design. Find out more about the contents of the Dezeen partnership here.
