In the Studio: Clay Matter(s)

Critical to the Sustainability Design Lab (SDL)—and RISD’s overall creative culture—the studio is where students question and pick apart conventional approaches to design, and direct new ways of making toward creating sustainable futures.

Throughout Clay Matter(s), participants synthesized theories and methods of landscape architecture, interior architecture and industrial design to explore the sustainable potential of clay within a learning environment akin to professional practice. Within this context, students tested, iterated on and challenged their own ideas, producing work at the scale of real-world application.

The highly individualized approaches SDL students bring to their work reflect the interdisciplinary ethos of the lab’s faculty who, rather than emphasizing a single framework for problem solving, encouraged modes of thinking and making that balance rigorous research, careful planning and intuitive learning by doing.

The end products of Clay Matter(s), and the SDL in total, are the result of how students bring this ethos to life, especially in the active space of the studio.