Designing Between Worlds

Author

Levon Kostandyan, Rhode Island School of DesignFollow

Date of Award

Spring 5-31-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Industrial Design

Department

Industrial Design

First Advisor

Paolo Cardini

Second Advisor

Junko Yamamoto

Third Advisor

Farah Al-Khoury

Abstract

This thesis reimagines design as a means of cultural continuity—an act of memory, resistance, and transformation. Rooted in the diasporic Armenian experience, it explores how identity is carried not only through storytelling, but through materials, rituals, and objects that evolve across time and place. Through the transformation of pomegranate skin from waste into a meaningful design material, the project navigates the space between symbolism and substance, honoring both the fruit’s ancestral weight and its potential as a living material language.


The work moves between personal narrative, historical research, and material experimentation, engaging with themes of displacement, hybridity, and embedded knowledge. Rather than preserving heritage as something static, the project proposes that continuity is an active, evolving practice—one shaped through making, adaptation, and reinterpretation. The resulting objects—veneers, inlays, and furniture—do not attempt to fix identity in place but instead reflect its complexity, resilience, and motion.

This thesis proposes a model for industrial design that is culturally attuned, materially aware, and grounded in specificity rather than standardization. It offers a design practice built on care—designing not just with materials, but with histories, absences, and the quiet endurance of what survives.

Recommended Citation

Kostandyan, Levon, "Designing Between Worlds" (2025). Masters Theses. 1481.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1481

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.