Furniture Design Masters Theses

 

Highly experimental and individualized, the graduate program in Furniture Design supports each student’s artistic development and articulation of an individual design philosophy through the conception, design and construction of furniture and related objects. The work produced ranges from one-of-a-kind objects, to designs for limited or mass production, to experimental, conceptually based projects. Aesthetic considerations in conjunction with a fluent use of materials and processes to support individual design concepts are paramount.

MFA candidates produce a final body of work and accompanying written thesis as an articulation of the graduate process, simultaneously aiding self-definition and demonstrating a personal point of view. MFA candidates are also required to mount a professional solo exhibition. Their personally selected thesis committee assists in developing a timeline for the exhibition based on assessments of each student’s proposal and progress. In addition, graduating students exhibit in the RISD Graduate Thesis Exhibition, a large-scale public show held annually.

Graduate Program Director: Lothar Windels

These works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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Theses from 2024

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The Future Is Over, Dotan Appelbaum

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Function Follows Material, Pablo Ejarque González

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So Far So Good, Cooper Goldman

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Lost Stories, Yuxuan Huang

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Untitled, Lucia Steele

Theses from 2023

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A Part Apart, Spenser Atlas

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The Approach: A Promise of Warmth Inside, Louis Cohen

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Objects of Daydreaming, Aaron Lorenz

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Elusive Geometry, Lauren Richards

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Living in nature & design with nature, yuya zhou

Theses from 2022

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Notes to myself, Anna Dawson

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A wavering line, Ginger Gordon

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Just enough, Amelia Greteman

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Miles and miles and miles, Shannon Rose Jones

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In this form, together, Elana Shvalbe

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Mood follows matter, Maxwell Taylor-Milner

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The sky is falling, Alexis Tingey

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Slow puzzle, Tzyy Yi Young

Theses from 2021

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Polyrhythms, Kevin Costante

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Loose threads / Hilos sueltos, Estefanía de Ros

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Taking care, John Dixon

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What do I see between 2 to 8 o'clock, Youtian Duan

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Dress your chair, Yumeng Gai

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This trash is someone else's problem, Lauren Goodman

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Making meaning, Eric Loucks

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An evolving process: patterns and objects, Shreya Tuli

Theses from 2020

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You are trapped., Will Chouinard

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Erik DeGiorgi, Erik DeGiorgi

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Slick and lumpy : heavy cream, Emma Fague

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This feels familiar, E. Winslow Funaki

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Glurp, glurp, glurp, Zihe Gong

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Cross your fingers, Ayumi Kodama

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Kainan Liu, Kainan Liu

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Internal resonance, Xiangyu Wang

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Utopian fantasy, Yue Zhuo

Theses from 2019

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Mis jarrones, Marco Sebastián Arroyo Hoebens

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American Slavic : and other writings, Zac Banik

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Stepping aside, Juan Pablo Gutiérrez García

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Conversations in 2019, Kit Howland

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Works and process, Alex Hsu

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Sky is sinking below the trees : two years of documentation and observations, Xuelun Li

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Externalized : origins of aesthetic motivations, Tim Miller

Theses from 2018

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A natural circus, Cecilia Plasencia

Theses from 2017

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Re-structure : an exploration of relational engagement through objects & object making, Mark Epler

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Transformation through drawing and gesture, McKenzie Gibson

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Living rooms we don't live in anymore, Caroline Kable

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Familiar strangers, Rebecca Li

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Between thoughts : on the interconnectivity of things, Yunzhu Wang

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Poetic features beyond functions, Lu Xu

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Expressionism in furniture, Zihan Zhang

Theses from 2016

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Verb things: changing the conversation, Kendra Kirchmer

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Frequency, Andrew Pick

Theses from 2015

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Objects in mind, Leah Kenttämaa-Squires