Annual Themes

A rock formation of mostly gray, red and white clay

Each year, students and faculty working in the Sustainability Design Lab focus their research and work through a specific contextual lens—an annual theme that brings together related climate and sustainability issues. Discover below the themes that guide the work emanating from the lab.

2023–24 theme studio — Clay Matters

Running through the fall and spring, Clay Matters is a six-credit advanced elective studio based in the Sustainability Design Lab. Over the course of the studio, students will broaden their practices by questioning current attitudes to clay and expanding the boundaries of its potential sustainable uses, both as material and technique within the fields of architecture and landscape architecture. 

Participants in this studio learn about clay’s environmental, geological and sociocultural influence on New England’s material cultures, focusing on three main components:

  • histories of clay and stories of material and land use, and how they have shaped different areas across New England and are entangled in power relations, value systems and wider networks of material exchange
  • the material behavior of clay as well as its unique property dynamics and how they influence its different uses
  • the development of iterative creative processes that inspire sustainable ways of drawing and making with clay as a modular material and an in-situ technique in both digital and analog fabrication

The fall studio transitions into a progressively self-directed spring thesis studio. The spring studio allows students to develop an independent thesis focused on clay as a material—a body of work that contributes to sustainable, interdisciplinary approaches to each student’s respective fields and interests.

Get to know RISD

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Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA)

Offering a two- and three-year degree option, the MLA provides a rich context for you to learn the discipline alongside a community engaged in a diverse range of creative and critical practices.

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Interior Architecture master’s programs

Our Master of Arts and two Master of Design programs offer distinct pathways toward professional practice and expertise in your chosen area of the Interior Architecture field.

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Coastal Sustainability joint program

Our partnership with the University of Rhode Island’s Master of Marine Affairs (MMA) program enhances the MLA degree with studies in coastal and marine social science, economics, policy, planning and law.