Heewon Lee is an industrial designer and design educator. His work focuses on creating and facilitating design educational programs in humanitarian and development contexts.
As part of the MIT D-Lab Humanitarian Innovation team, the focus of Lee’s work has been creative capacity building for refugee boys, girls and women in Athens, Greece at local NGO Faros. At Faros, he helped establish the Horizon Center Design Program, a vocational and innovation center. The overall objective of this project is to develop a holistic design program where the participants can gain knowledge, skills and mindsets to build confidence, increase their sense of agency and realize pathways through which they can improve their livelihoods.
Originally from South Korea, Lee completed his master’s degree in Interaction Design at Umeå Institute of Design and worked on numerous product, interaction and graphic design projects. In 2013 he joined the International Development Design Summit in Zambia and pivoted his career to teaching the design process and methods in formats including academic coursework and short/long term workshops around the world. In his free time, he enjoys rock climbing and filmmaking.
MIT STUDIO teaches modern tools and methods for product design and development. Teams consisting of MIT Sloan MBA students, MIT Engineering students, and undergraduate RISD Industrial Design students conceive, design, and prototype a physical product over the course of the semester. An "alpha prototype" is presented by each team at the end of the course.
Project ideas come from the students in the class and are rated (by students) for potential. The most promising opportunities (rated by student interest) will be used to form project teams for the remainder of the semester. Each team will be allocated a $1000 budget for product development. The course is generously supported by a small number of sponsors, who may also suggest one or more project opportunities for your consideration.
The class is primarily intended for seniors in Industrial Design and is jointly taught by RISD faculty Heewon Lee and MIT faculty; Prof. Steven Eppinger and Prof. Maria Yang. The first half of each class session will generally be in lecture and discussion format, and the second half will be used for project team meetings and consultation with faculty.
NOTE: Lectures are held on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons at MIT Sloan in Cambridge MA. This class requires students to travel to Cambridge twice a week for the semester. Transportation costs outside of the Add/Drop period are covered by RISD for MBTA Commuter Rail and T-Subway System.
Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design, MID (2.5yr): Industrial Design
