In Fall 2018 the Imaginaries Lab is launching two new ‘research studio’ courses, New Ways to Think and New Ways to Live. Limited to 15 students per course, these are intended to be a way of bringing more practical, investigatory research-through-design projects within students’ reach, within Carnegie Mellon’s scheduling and space constraints. The two elective minis (half-semester courses) offer undergraduate and graduate students from across CMU the opportunity to carry out interdisciplinary research using design methods, addressing real-world issues.
51–485 / 51–885 Imaginaries Lab: New Ways to Think
In this course, we’ll carry out research through design projects using experimental investigative methods in the wild, focusing on new ways to think and understand in an increasingly complex world. Learn and develop a variety of tools for conducting innovative forms of research through design, focused on exploring how people think, understand and imagine complex social and technological concepts, and envision futures. By the end of the course students will have worked on an interdisciplinary research project, including with an external partner, drawing on a number of disciplinary domains, and have experience with different kinds of design research and practice, from speculative and critical design to participatory design, as well as developing the skills and experience necessary to innovate with, and deploy, those methods. This course is a complement to Imaginaries Lab: New Ways To Live, but is independent of it, and either or both courses can be taken without overlap (we will be doing different projects, with a different focus).
51–487 / 51–887 Imaginaries Lab: New Ways to Live
Focusing on new ways to live and experience the world, now and in the future, well do practical investigative research through design projects using experimental methods in the wild. Learn and develop a variety of tools for conducting innovative forms of research through design, focused on exploring how people think, understand and imagine complex social and technological concepts, and envision futures. By the end of the course students will have worked on an interdisciplinary research project, including with an external partner, drawing on a number of disciplinary domains, and have experience with different kinds of design research and practice, from speculative and critical design to participatory design, as well as developing the skills and experience necessary to innovate with, and deploy, those methods. This course is a complement to Imaginaries Lab: New Ways To Think, but is independent of it, and either or both courses can be taken without overlap (we will be doing different projects, with a different focus).