"The first graduate program at RISD was established in 1957 with the MS in Art Education with the first MFA programs starting in 1961. We now have 16 graduate programs with 2 more being added in 2018.The core of any graduate program is concentrated and advanced study in an academic or professional field. Compared with undergraduate studies, graduate education is focused on producing original contributions to a field, based on research and advance practice. Graduate programs also provide the opportunity for more applied experience via internships, teaching or research. This is essential for RISD’s commitment to furthering the importance of art and design in the world and in producing distinguished professional and academic leaders." -Pradeep Sharma, RISD Provost 2014-2017
This collection presents student Masters Theses submitted and approved as graduation requirements from each of the 16 departments offering a graduate degree: Architecture, Ceramics, Digital + Media, Furniture Design, Glass, Graphic Design, Industrial Design, Interior Architecture, Jewelry + Metalsmithing, Landscape Architecture, Painting, Photography, Printmaking, Sculpture, Teaching + Learning in Art and Design, and Textiles. Postgraduate writing and research is also included.
These works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Theses/Dissertations from 2020
Let us for once try to not be right, Merrick Adams
Water ceremony, Adriana Alva
Frankenstein, Ruins, & Twilight, Braden Bandel
Vacancy never vacant, Marina Bibidakis
Madrepora, Elizabeth Burmann Littin
Change of plans: the subversive kit in the planned community, Hugo Caldwell
Recipes, Camille Chew
Recycle bin (trashure), Eunhyung Chung
, nevertheless,, Ji Yoon Chung
The knots on the underside of the carpet, Lily Colman
Revisionist histories : Parallels of monuments and absence in the present, Scott Craft
Survival feast, Charlott Dazan
Field notes on seeing: archive of color, mirrors & light, Tori Deutch
Acoustic signatures: their study, representation, and agency in the experience of architectural spaces, Nathalie d'Hennezel
Mimesis : human-centered digital profiling visual identity, Yangyang Ding
In-between through : bordering bodies ; a spatial containment, Aroly Enamorado
Slick and lumpy : heavy cream, Emma Fague
This feels familiar, E. Winslow Funaki
To make atmosphere, Gonzalo Galetto
Amor fati, Keavy Handley-Byrne
Tolerance : material conversations on life & architecture, Keyan Hansen
Unbound, Changrui He
Climate resilience for a neighborhood without privilege: East Boston, Peter Niels Heller
American MFA Vol. III Academia, Kevin Hubbard
Project fusion, Tianbao Hu
In the flesh, Courtney Sierra Johnson
Bundles and blanks and binds and bends, Steven Kaplan-Pistiner
Hain't, Jarrett Key
Occupying the public : humans, space & identity, Brittany Knowlton
I - 0, Sanghyun Koh
Two-gather / collective living : housing and recreational facilities in suburban Mumbai, Rashi Harshil Lalaji
3, 2, 1, Omar Lalani
Playgrounds : symbiosis of humans, nature, and architecture, Hannah Langmuir
First sweet truth, Jessina Lynn Leonard
Transform through architecture : a journey of discovery at the Providence Place Mall, Haoning Li
About intimacy, Jiamin Lin
A space for reconciliation, Xiaoran Liu
float i;, Zihan Iris Li
The things of mind, Yini Luo
Adaptive reuse pattern book : re-evaluating historical capital, Taylor McCabe
Things that grew while I looked at the ground, Heather McMordie
He makes the twigs our mouths to meet, Josh Meier
The line, Hannah Oatman
Tension in the curve, S.K. O'Brien
Watermarks : the catalogue for home enthusiasts, Susana Oliveros Oliveros Amaya
Living together : revisiting the SRO + new forms of collectivity, Elizabeth Parker
Smoke and mirrors, Kiernan Pazdar
This side of the air, Madeline Peckenpaugh
Slice of life : theater of the dinner table, Kate Pincus-Whitney
Art beside a single handshake : can you believe it?, Tongji Qian
Father figures, Chris Regner
Digital duck, Zach Schumacher
A little more like water, Jacqueline Scott
Under / Over Looked, Kopal Seth
Accessibility to possibilities : discover the unknown unknown worlds, Yutong Shen
Storytelling in arts, Lindi Shi
U+16E99, Bobby Joe Smith III
Wrung from grave architectures, Megan Solis
The story of Market House, Patrick Spence
Intimacy in infrastructure, Andrew Sponseller
Silence is a luxury, Elise Stephens
Adapting home : residential development and domestic comfort in Vermont, Mikéla Sumner
A city's culture should include birds : to rethink of architecture with birds in mind, Pan Sun
Rootless, Lilla Szekely
With eyes unclouded, Tiffany Tang
Living rig island : an industrial symbiosis research and design proposal, Yangchuan Niko Tian
How to be simultaneously precise and nondescript, McKinzie Trotta
Blueridgelivin' : environmental development and suburban sprawl, Chris Villalta
Uncanny genericism, Eamon Wagner
Possibilities in void, Fangyu Wei
Specific : and practices in the urban periphery, Sam Wesselman
These inadvertent marks, Thomas Wilder
Architecture of dreams, Alex Jing-Seng Wong
Make yourself at home, Han Seok You
Urban village compound : new collectives in Shenzhen, Lu Yu
Relocation community revival, Zhan Zhang
Theses/Dissertations from 2019
[Super] structure : expanding the network / reclaiming the path, Anna Albrecht
Integration as a catalyst for change : school for Rohingya children, Naeera Ali
Biomatters : future of biology as material source, Tareq Alzawawi
Mis jarrones, Marco Sebastián Arroyo Hoebens
Record : from signal to atmosphere, and the spaces between silence and noise, Amy Auman
Glossary I : Graduate Thesis, Eli Backer
American Slavic : and other writings, Zac Banik
Recovery in reverse, Shiyu Bei
Mindful interactions, Shreyans Bhandari
Unimproved : land observation at the edge of progress, Adam Somers Bowen
Throngs, Yinan Chen
Walking mediation : bringing back rituals on temple visits on Mount Putuo, Zhejiang, China, Tianjie Chi
Slowness in the fray : architecture that orients to nature, Colin Christensen
Bitter son, Adam Chuong
Tell me about a class at RISD : classroom experiences of multilingual, international Graduate students at the Rhode Island School of Design, Madeline Conley
Human artist, Nicholas Costantino
Plenty : wanting, choosing,, overwhelming unloading, Christopher Cote
The social life of working waterfronts : strategies for renewing the social value of productive harbors, Evan Davenport
Urban acupuncture : can the deliberate use of tactical interventions reinvigorate informal settlements?, Robert Samir Diaz Vicente
Addicts of nostalgia, Samuel Robert Campbell Drake