Department Head

Wolfgang Rudorf

Graduate Program Director

Eduardo Benamor Duarte

• Learn more about Interior Architecture at RISD

• Department Location and Contacts

Curriculum

• Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA)

• Master of Arts: Adaptive Reuse

• Master of Design: Adaptive Reuse

• Master of Design: Exhibitions and Narrative Environments

Learning outcomes

Graduates of the BFA program are prepared to:

• evaluate their own individual talents, interests and aptitudes to determine a suitable career path.

• navigate a collaborative work environment in order to investigate aspects of interior interventions through conceptual thinking and critical making.

• develop design strategies that recognize the importance of social and environmental responsibility.

• understand design principles and the tools for implementing them to develop meaningful and coherent design propositions.

• recognize the importance of context in the transformation of space and acknowledge its implications in the formulation of design concepts.

• articulate design concepts and implement interventions based on the transformation of existing structures.

• communicate design ideas through drawings, projections and both physical and digital models.

• engage with interior interventions in the field and apply this knowledge in design projects of varying scales.

Graduates of the MA program are prepared to:

• engage in the practice and implementation of adaptive reuse in the built environment through the demonstration of an appropriate aesthetic, theoretical and technological framework.

• expand upon the architect's understanding of reuse as a product of practice and in the context of architectural history and theory.

• develop strategies for acknowledging the importance of social and environmental responsibility through design projects.

• view and evaluate adaptive reuse through a multifaceted lens.

• recognize the origins of adaptive reuse as well as the contemporary context governing current practice.

• use qualitative and quantitative methods to evaluate the economic and environmental merits of adaptive reuse.

• become ambassadors of adaptive reuse as a specialty in the professional design setting through the advancement of such practice at conferences and as built work.

Graduates of the MDes programs are prepared to:

• adopt a clear aesthetic, theoretical and technological framework for interior studies in order to engage in this subject in the design field.

• investigate different aspects of design interventions in the built environment.

• articulate the distinctive nature of interior studies as an effective member of a design team able to interact and collaborate with fellow professionals in related fields.

• develop design strategies that recognize the importance of social and environmental responsibility.

• assess the spatial transformation capabilities of an existing structure.

• formulate an original design concept based on research and evaluate, develop, present and advocate coherent design propositions.

• understand and incorporate related consultant feedback as part of the collaborative process in a professional setting.