Department Blog
Department news, events, and snapshots of student life at SVA in New York City.
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POWER PLAY: Designing for Agency and Empathy in Virtual Environments
As it does in the physical world, violence against others occurs in VR spaces. While designers may not be able to expunge this from human nature, Phuong Anh Nguyen believes that we can design tools for victims to gain agency over their harasser. Through her thesis Power Play: Designing for Agency and Empathy in Virtual Environments, she aims to introduce empathy-building products and experiences to shape respectful behaviors in current and future virtual environments.
BEFORE YOU CLICK: Design for Better Decision-Making in Online Shopping
In his thesis, Before you click: Design for Better Decision-Making in Online Shopping, Zihan Chen examines the problems of product design in online shopping, to provide online shoppers with tools of various kinds for making better purchasing decisions. His thesis explores interventions that make online shopping less impulsive, more mindful and more social.
FANTASIES OF OUR INDEPENDENCE: The Role of Civil Society in the Postmodern City
For his thesis, Fantasies of Our Independence: The Role of Civil Society in the Postmodern City, Ben Bartlett spent this year studying Western urbanism and the future of cities. After speaking with experts in urban planning, urban mobility, and counterterrorism, he determined that safety, and the feeling of safety, shape the policy and planning of urban systems. Throughout his research he uncovered two different approaches to creating safer public spaces that will determine how futures cities function and treat their citizens, and designed both speculative and pragmatic interventions to respond to each.
PAINT App Restores Agency to Women in the Doctor's Office
Paint is an app that allows patients to document and describe their symptoms in more than words. As part of her thesis, Hysterical, second-year student Rhea Bhandari designed Paint to help women advocate for themselves while navigating a healthcare system that often dismisses their symptoms, leaving them misdiagnosed and in avoidable pain.
SWIFT: An Arm-Free Crutch for Below-Knee Amputees
The idea for Swift came about while Smruti watched videos on the YouTube channel “AmputeeOT” by Christina Stephens, an occupational therapist and below-knee unilateral amputee. Smruti was especially struck by a video in which Stephens describes the annoyances of going to the bathroom or getting up for a glass of water in the middle of the night; Stephens mentions that she usually crawls on the floor to get to the bathroom or kitchen because putting on her prosthetic is so time-consuming.
HARK: An Over-the-Counter Rape Kit
Hark, a speculative project created by second year student Antya Waegemann, is proposed to be the first over-the-counter sexual assault forensic exam (or “rape kit”) available at any major pharmacy. Small and discreet, Hark is designed to be approachable and comforting for survivors of sexual assault.
PROSUMERISM: Crafting Alternate Consumption Experiences
In her thesis Prosumerism: Crafting Alternate Consumption Experiences, Sowmya Iyer explores whether products and services can ease the consumer’s guilt of excessive spending and materialism by providing them with options that best fit their values of sustainability. She also wanted to find out if these products/services could be adaptive to the consumer’s lifestyle and built for their convenience. As part of her research process, Sowmya spoke to researchers, innovators, educators, authors, and artists exploring ways to reduce the effects of modern consumerism on the environment.
SYMBIOSIS: Ecological Services for the Urban Environment.
Since mass industrialization, the past few centuries have seen abundant growth and prosperity for humankind, but not so much for the planet. With little regard for the environment, industrialization has caused all kinds of pollution, loss of natural areas and biodiversity among others, and this carries a cost. This cost can be expressed as ecological debt that future generations must pay. By honing into the ecological debt accumulated by cities, Kuan Xu attempts to redeem by introducing the concept of ecological service and its significance. The design interventions then take a variety of lenses to advocate for ecological service design to instigate environmental consciousness and awareness driven action in the urban environment. With the mission of introducing ecological service into the city, and city dwellers adopting it, Kuan presents his thesis—Symbiosis, Ecological Services for the Urban Environment.
YES, MAYBE NOT: A Design Investigation Into Young Adulthood
As a designer, Jiani Lin believes that great design can be inspired by our everyday experiences. Her thesis YES, MAYBE NOT: A Design Investigation into Young Adulthood focuses on exploring the shared emotions, behaviors, and experiences young adults have as they graduate college and enter the working world, or plan to do so, all while leaving behind their comfort zone. She addresses young adults’ identity exploration on a professional, romantic, and social level through designing objects, products, service platforms, apps, and systems that can help this generation prepare for the period of life post-graduation.