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A Good Life 5 - Parsons The New School for Design

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Through an immersion in materials, processes, aesthetic consideration and proactive social engagement, Parsons Product Design Department cultivates the intellectual habits and technical skills essential to imaginatively explore and responsibly integrate the swiftly expanding roles of a successful, professional product designer.

Tony Whitfield, Chair

Mark Bechtel, Assistant Chair

Robert Kirkbride, Thesis Coordinator

Patricia Beirne, Design Research Advisor

Len Mayer, Design Instructor

Bridget Parris, Design Instructor

Rick Penney, Design Instructor

Rise Wilson, Social Entrepreneurship Advisor

Programs

Is it possible to generate products that are sensuous and smart, beguiling and ethically grounded?

How many ways can a product enhance personal, cultural and environmental well-being?

How might design stimulate social revitalization and conviviality?

Throughout 2007-08, the Parsons Product Design Department continues its mission of working in collaboration with New York’s Not-for-Profit community, challenging students to be accountable for the broader impact of their ideas, from an early stage in design development through full life cycle analysis. Building on progress from the first four years and 133 proposals for “A Good Life,” the current collection of thesis projects are presented on this Design21 blog during the final stages of development as students prepare for their final reviews in early May and the 2008 Senior Product Design Thesis Show, scheduled for May 16 - 25. Centering on topics of well-being and conviviality, these evolving projects reflect an understanding that design can not persist as the production of discreet, fetishized objects, assembled by linear thinking in isolation of their extended influences. Pursuit of “A Good Life” raises questions of identity and issues of sensuality and responsibility, addressing the complex weave of forces engaged in developing any given product or system, locally and globally.