Encompassing a unique confluence of design disciplines, Parsons School of Constructed Environments nurtures and guides tomorrow’s leaders toward socially just, environmentally sustainable, and technologically innovative buildings, interiors, lighting, and products. In a time of unprecedented change, we foster the skills, values, and vision vital to create a more integrated, equitable and delightful world.

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The BFA in Architectural Design is a pre-professional degree program that immerses students in the challenges of working in the built environment. Students study site and environmental factors, form-finding and materiality, and social and civic conditions, to propose and test new architectural ideas using New York City as an urban laboratory. Students learn an array of tools as well as a design language while developing the critical and technical skills that they will need to be successful thinkers and collaborators in their future work.

In preparing graduate students to be thoughtful professional architects, the Master of Architecture program integrates theory, analysis, experimentation, and speculation with the logics of building. The program sees and positions such contemporary architectural issues as the activation of site and programmatic forces, the social commitment of design, tectonic and material methodologies, infrastructural and natural systems in design thinking, and digital and sustainable technologies as fields of potential for architectural investigation.

The AAS in Interior Design program is a first-professional curriculum for career advancers and changers from a broad spectrum of fields. Students explore interior design concepts for residential, commercial, and hospitality interiors, mastering fundamental knowledge and skills of design and drawing through various means and mediums. Additionally, students acquire a strong foundation in environmental design and sustainability. Finally, the program offers students opportunities to intern at prominent firms and undertake projects with external partners. Through the various program experiences, collaborations, and field-related networks, the AAS interior design students are equipped to succeed in a growing field and contribute to its evolution in design for change.

Modern interior design study was launched at Parsons in 1906 and continues to evolve as a socially engaged design practice that considers the complex challenges of the 21st century. The BFA Interior Design program guides students through a rigorous, four-year curriculum that supports critical thinking, iterative design processes, and interdisciplinary collaboration. Working across scales of the interior, students learn respectful and responsible ways to design for health, well-being, and the delight of humans and all living beings. Building on a legacy of innovative practice at Parsons, the BFA Interior Design program engages with prevalent socioeconomic and ecological issues with a mission to contribute to a more just, sustainable, and harmonious environment through interior design.

The MFA in Interior Design program builds upon Parsons's rich history of interior design to re-think the field and its influence on the human experience: to bring expansive and speculative approaches to design with rigorous study and conscientious awareness of the environmental impact, historical precedent, craftsmanship, human health, and social change. The program has a studio-centered, research-oriented focus that challenges students to holistically explore human perception, human behavior, and comfort of the built interior.

The MFA Lighting Design program, the first of its kind in the world, has trained leaders in this rapidly evolving field for more than 30 years. With a solid foundation in the intellectual, aesthetic, and technical dimensions of light, Parsons’ interdisciplinary lighting design curriculum focuses on human experience, sustainability, and the social impact of lighting design. Students explore the relationships between theory, technical application, energy conservation, and social and environmental aspects of electric and natural light. 

The BFA in Product Design cultivates the technical and critical skills needed to design products that enhance human abilities and our relationships to the natural and built environments. Students propose objects that address contemporary and speculative future realities including sustainability, manufacturing, social justice and technological change while exploring materials, fabrication, aesthetics, and social engagement in both local and global contexts. Students are exposed to the profession through project-based work in which they acquire industry specific skills and knowledge of manufacturing, materials, and processes. Emphasis is put on understanding appropriate scale of making from self-production to mass-production.

The MFA in Industrial Design program prepares students to navigate the seemingly contradictory forces at play in the growing field of product design — with an eye toward reconciling them and shaping a more integrated future. Through critical making and design-led inquiry, students in the program develop not only the skills to shape innovative products and services, but the mindset to challenge and reform the very industries that produce them. Project-based work offers opportunities to investigate various scales of  production from low-volume “manufacturing in place” (in cities for cities) to internationalized industry. Projects work to expand the notion of product design to include a greater understanding of global supply and value chains, and intentionality towards balancing economic and social inequities. While the program’s scope is broad, graduates are expected to complete a highly focused thesis project that should serve as a benchmark for their course of study and experience. They choose a specific area and specialized topic in creating innovative or provocative designs that forward or challenge the field of product and industrial design.

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Parsons’ future will be shaped by the core values that have defined our past: curricular innovation, collaborative methods, pioneering uses of technology, and experimentation. As part of The New School, Parsons shares an institutional vision that aligns with shifts in the global economy, society, and environment, which animate our mission and our values:

• Creativity, innovation, and a desire to challenge the status quo, both in what and how we teach and in the intellectual ambitions of the school itself
• Social engagement, orienting students’ academic experience to help them become critically engaged citizens dedicated to solving problems and contributing to the public good

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